Chinese Classifiers And The Li Language Classifiers

This paper aims at the classifiers in Chinese and Li language. And by analyzing the classification of classifiers and its semantic distribution, the structural forms of classifiers, so it discusses the differences and similarities among the semantic categories, grammatical meanings and grammatical functions of classifiers between Chinese and Li.With the development of language, the semantic categories and the grammatical categories gradually tend to oversimplify, such as "个" in Chinese classifiers and "hom⁵³" in Li ones. The collocation of nouns or verbs with the classifiers in Chinese and Li are not the same, due to the different culture background, and the way to recognize the things, the distinctions of the classifiers quantities and the semantic features between its.The collocation of numerals and classifiers must be restricted by rules in Chinese and Li. Moreover, in Chinese classifiers phrases, the numerals are usually limited to use, sometimes it just can use 'one, two, 几', in cases, "one" is often used. Li numerals, such as s(?)(?)²⁴ and ts(?)³³ (one), fuet⁵⁵ and pun⁵³ (ten), also combine with classifiers as classifiers phrases , which must conform to the guiding rules as well.Comparing with some southern dialects and Dong-Tai languages, the syntactic functions of classifiers in Li language seems to be less weak. Li classifiers are seldom used alone, and they must be used with demonstrative pronoun and numerals. Recently, we find they are getting more flexible in speech, and some Li classifiers can directly collocate with nouns serving as kinds-denoting, which perhaps is influenced by the Hai-Nan dialect, and this need to be discussed further.The classifiers' functions refer to specific in demonstrative classifier phrases. Demonstrative NP is a structure that leaves out the classifiers in Chinese sentence, which denote both of kinds and specific. Otherwise, kind-denoting NP requires individual-level predicate and rule out stage-level ones in Chinese. The application of "NP+nei⁵⁵" is not the same to Demonstrative NP in double predicate, and it refers to specific. In the stage-level ones, Li people often prefer to use the demonstrative classifier phrases denoting specific in order to avoid the wrongs in the words.The classifier phrases can act as different sentence elements in Chinese and Li. The basic function of classifiers phrases in Li is to act as attributive, adverbial, and complement. In present, Li classifier phrases can also act as subject, object, predicate, and this usage probably is influenced by Chinese syntax.