Classifiers and Semantic Type Coercion : Motivating a New Classification of Classifiers
Kathleen Ahrens, Chu‐Ren Huang · Waseda University Repository (Waseda University) · 1996
This paper argues that the traditional view that nouns refer only to classic individuals is inadequate. Instead, we argue that nouns are coerced by different types of classifiers to refer to kinds and events as well as to individuals. This finding is important because 1) the semantics of nouns involves more than just individuals, and 2) it is the first time that the previously abstract semantic distinctions between kinds, individuals and events is found to be instantiated in a particular system of a natural language grammar, namely, the classifier system. 1.