1887
Volume 49, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1810-7478
  • E-ISSN: 2589-5230

Abstract

Abstract

This paper investigates the distribution and properties of the Hakka general classifiers and . We focus on the [determiner/numeral + classifier + noun] construction where we observe the relations between the general classifiers and their following nouns, chosen based on their frequency in this construction. We adopt a corpus-based collostructional analysis which calculates the collocational strength values of and with following nouns. A Hakka corpus was compiled for the study. The three-way distinction in the collostructional analysis (attractive, neutral, and repulsive) is directly mapped to acceptability of various degrees. The results show that is highly correlated with human-denoting nouns, whereas is highly correlated with animal-denoting nouns. Nouns denoting abstract entities or concrete objects without physical properties like size or shape usually lack specific classifiers, and both and can collocate with them, albeit with varying degrees of preference. We argue that both and are general classifiers because both are more frequently used than specific classifiers and both exhibit disjointed semantic distribution and allow abstract nouns. While they show preferences for different nouns, requirements to qualify as general classifiers are equally met.

Available under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
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/content/journals/10.1075/consl.23003.hua
2023-11-02
2025-12-14
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