--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Âàäèì Ïîíàðÿäîâ" <ponaryad@...>
wrote:
> Glen:
> > The usage of classifiers would appear to be an areal feature of
> > many Asian languages. I've encountered them in Vietnamese,
Mandarin,
> > Cantonese and Japanese.
>
>
> It is so in the sense that in the languages of Eastern and South-
Eastern Asia the usage of classifiers is a very developed feature.
But really, something similar is attested also in many other
languages, including some IE ones.
> ... I think, something similar exists even in such English
expressions as: two cups of coffee, five glasses of milk, etc.
In the examples you give, the construction is resorted to
because 'coffee' and 'milk' are uncountable. And the classifier
analogue is not fixed; you could have two mugs of coffee, depending
on whether you have a saucer to rest the container on. A good
example is beer - three bottles of beer / three mugs of beer / three
pints of peer - depending very much on how it is dispensed. At a
pinch 'coffee' and 'beer' may be made countable in commerical
cicumstances, where the unit is fixed by context.
The better analogy is 'three head of cattle'. The classifier-
equivalent is fixed here. But I wonder if this is because 'cattle'
is close to being uncountable, perhaps because it has no singular,
but has an obvious unit. I do not feel comfortable saying 'three
cattle'; I would say 'three cows', or 'three heifers', or 'three
bullocks', etc. depending on the age and sex of the animals.
Richard.