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Japanese Numeral Classifiers: A Syntactic, Semantic, and Functional Profile By Pamela Ann Downing A.-B. (University of Iowa) 1970 M.A. (University of California) 1975 C.Phil. (University of California) 1981 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Linguistics in the GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Approved: . .... (?~.x ChaSm nai^ S \ t w a t e ^ ’/k*a &T • • k» r u •• pf ••••••• . L • M • • • A t A • • • ^ fe***• Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Japanese Numeral Classifiers: A Syntactic, Semantic, and Functional Profile Copyright(c)l984 Pamela Ann Downing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is impossible for me to adequately express my thanks to all the individuals who provided the moral and intellectual support that made it possible for me to complete this dissertation. First thanks is due to my primary informant, Yoshiko Matsumoto, who not only produced consistently thoughtful responses to my endless questions, but who suggested fruitful new lines of investigation that I otherwise might never have considered. My efforts were also blessed with the cooperation of an exceptionally helpful dissertation committee: Chuck Fillmore, who, with his lively interest in Japanese and everything else, constantly prodded me along with both encouragement and thought-provoking questions; tfally Chafe, who has been an unflagging support and major influence throughout my graduate career; and Haruo Aoki, who first introduced me to Japanese and who has shared an apparently bottomless wealth of information about it with me ever since. Whatever merits this dissertation may possess are largely due to the efforts of these people; its shortcomings are due only to me. I have also profited greatly from the cooperation of other scholars, both here and in Japan, where I was able to study thanks to a fellowship from the Japanese Ministry of Education. My original choice of a dissertation topic was made after helpful discussions with Professors Minoru Yasui, Shiro Hayashi, and, especially, Hideo Teramura of Tsukuba University, where I also benefited from the insights of many fellow students. Atsuroo Tsubomoto and Shinobu Mizuguchi were of special help during my stay at Tsukuba, and discussions with John Whitman, Wes Jacobsen, Akiko Kawasaki, and Kuniko Okubo were also very important, both in expanding my understanding of Japanese and in making my stay in Japan a pleasurable and profitable experience. The final version of the dissertation has been improved immeasurably by comments from Paul Kay, George Lakoff, Knud Lambrecht, and especially David Gordon and Pat Clancy, who loyally waded through even the most muddled intermediate versions and suggested how to unmuddle them. I also wish to express my gratitude for the support I received from my family and friends at Berkeley. I am especially thankful to my sister and brother-in-law, Sue and Peter Scotto, to my mother, who has provided i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Piller, Cathy O'Connor, and Karl Zimmer, whose friendship and concern often lifted my sagging spirits. And my most heartfelt thanks gc to Jane Danielewicz, who unstintingly shared her office, her time, and her infectious enthusiasm, and who often worked in my best interests with greater energy than even I could muster. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS Japanese examples are romanized phonemically, in accordance with the Kunreisiki system officially sanctioned by the Japanese government, with the exception that long vowels are indicated by a repetition of the vowel in question, rather than by a vowel marked with a circumflex. All examples which are actual recorded uses of classifiers are accompanied by one of the following symbols, to indicate the genre in which they originally appeared: 0 - oral FT - folktale F - (other) fiction NF - non-fiction Other examples have been constructed or elicited. Glosses for the Japanese examples contain the following abbreviations: COLL - collective marker INST - instrumental marker COM - comitative marker LOC - locative marker CONTR - contrastive marker NEG - negative marker COP - copula NMLZ - nominalizer CP - case particle NOM - nominative marker DAT - dative marker 03J - object marker EMPH - emphatic marker PL - plural marker EVID - evidential PP - pragmatic particle GEN - genitive marker PST - past tense marker HON - honorific marker Q - question marker IMF - imperative marker QUOT - quotative marker TOP - topic marker Linguistic forms cited from languages other than Japanese appear in the transcription system used by the author of the work from which the example is drawn. In some cases, e.g., Burmese, this results in the use of more than one system for iepresenting a single language. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES Page Core Inventory ................................................... 13 Extended Inventory ............................................... 15 Indigenous Japanese Numerals of the Eighth Century ............... 28 Present-day Japanese Numerals ..................................... 29 Classifier Types ................................................. 38 Frequency Distribution of Classifiers Included in 500 Form Sample ............. »...................... 48 Frequency Distribution of Forms Listed in Studies in the Vocabulary of Modern Newspapers .......................... 50 Classifiers Listed on Questionnaire Ordered by Number of Informants Claiming to Use Them ....................... 52 Basic Classifiers Acquired First by Children ............... ..;.. A 56 Rarely Used Members of the S y stem............................... 68 Rarely Used Classifiers Related to Obsolete Artifacts, Nature, or Religion .................... 70 Classifiers Associated with Representative Members ............... 88 Numeral Classifier Domains in Japanese (from Sanches) ............ 96 Semantic Features of Some Japanese Classifiers (from Denny) ...... 99 Verified Superordinate - Subordinate Pairs ....................... 101 Overextensions in Child Language (from Clark) .................... 117 Recurrent Semantic Relations Between Numeral Classifier Referent Class and Independent Sense of the Classifier Morpheme .. 129 Distribution of Classifiers in Anaphoric Examples Collected ...... 150 Distribution of Numerals in Anaphoric Examples Collected ......... 150 Relative Antecedent - Anaphor Distance Measured in Number of Intervening Clause Boundaries ......................... 155 Relative Antecedent - Anaphor Distance Measured in Number of Intervening Sentence Boundaries ....................... 156 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Relative Antecedent - Anaphor Distance Measured in Number of Intervening Referents (Types) ......................... 157 Mean Antecedent - Anaphor Distance for Pronouns and Anaphoric Classifiers ........................................... 159 Numeral Classifier - Plural Marker Correlations (from Sanches and Slobin) ...................................... 176 Distribution of Noun Particles Used in Type 3 Constructions ..... 210 Distribution of Noun Particles Used in Introductory Mentions Involving All Four Types of Classifier Construction .... 212 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................... 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................. i TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS ........................................ ill LIST OF TABLES ........................................,.......... iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................ 1 Problems In defining numeral classifiers ..... 2 Definition of the numeral classifier in Japanese ... 10 Classifier corpus considered in this study ........ 11 Core inventory ............................... 13 Extended inventory ........................... 15 Classifier issues of general interest ............. 17 2 THE JAPANESE SYSTEM - HISTORY AND MORPHOLOGY ......... 27 The numeral system of the eighth century .......... 27 The classifier system of the eighth century ....... 30 Morphology and syntax of the present-day system .... 38 3 SEMANTIC PROPERTIES OF THE SYSTEM ...................... 46 Distributional differences ........................ 46 Semantic properties influencing distribution . „.... 58 Nature of the referents associated with the classifier .............. 58 Referential range of the classifier .......... 71 Type of semantic cohesion within the referent class ................... 78 Internal structure of the referent class ..... 83 Summary of semantic properties of the system...... 93 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Implications for representation of the lexical field ............................. 95 4 INSTANTIATION OF UNIVERSAL SEMANTIC TRENDS IN THE JAPANESE SYSTEM ................................... 116 Hypothesis 1 ...................................... 116 Hypothesis 2 ...................................... 122