A Connectionist Approach to Numeral Classifiers Semanticity
Is it meaningful enough to be slow in understanding?
Keywords: Numeral classifiers, Chinese, Semantics, Psycholinguistics
Marc Tang, Taiwan National Chengchi University
The purpose of this paper is to propose a psycholinguistic explanation to the
theoretical issue of semanticity in numeral classifiers (Her, 2012; Gil, 2013).
Researchers have been interested in classifiers since they can reflect how speakers
view the world (Haas, 1942; Burling, 1965; Lakoff, 1987). Nevertheless, one of the
main controversies is whether numeral classifiers carry semanticity (Her, 2012) or are
they purely arbitrary syntactic components (Gil, 2013). While previous studies
focused on syntactic (Li, 1999; Borer, 2005; Yeung, 2007; Her, 2010) and semantic
(Tien et al, 2002; Chen, 2013) approaches, we provide psycholinguistic evidence.
Our research question is to support the semanticity of numeral classifiers via
psycholinguistic experiment on Chinese language. Based on the connectionist model
of Rummerlhart & McClelland (1987), and according to methodologies of previous
experiments on semantics (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971; Coltheart et al, 1977; Tyler
& Wessels, 1985), if numeral classifiers in Chinese do bear semanticity we can predict
different response time when participants face a grammaticality judgment test with
different combinations of numeral classifier + noun: we assume three levels detaining
an identical syntactic structure, however differing in semantic association. As
demonstrated in (1).
(1) Combinations of numeral classifiers and nouns in Chinese
Category Sample
Syntactically
一隻狗 yi zhi gou ‘one CL-animacy dog’ Correct
A
一張狗 yi zhang gou ‘one CL-2D dog’
B
Correct
C
一尾狗 yi wei gou ‘one CL-tail dog’
Correct
Semantically
Correct
Incorrect
Ambiguous
In A, the combination of numeral + classifier + noun is correct and frequently used
by native speakers. In B, the association of classifier + noun is semantically incorrect:
the classifier zhang highlights the feature of a 2D surface, which is not shared by the
following noun gou ‘dog’. Finally in C, the classifier is not used in such way by
native speakers however it does have a semantic connection with the following noun:
wei ‘CL-tail’ carry the semanticity of ‘tail’, which is a feature shared by the following
noun gou ‘dog’.
1
We predict three levels of response time: the most frequently used A should be the
fastest, tightly followed by the obviously incorrect form B, while the ambiguous
association C is the longest for participants to decide. A second prediction concerning
the grammaticality judgment is that A should be judged as correct, B as incorrect,
while participants should be divergent for the ambiguous association C. Following
this logic, our experiment is based on data from Sinica Corpus (containing 4,892,324
Chinese words) and previous studies on numeral classifiers semanticity (Wang, 2002;
Tien et al, 2002; Chen, 2013) to select materials and targeted 16 participants.
The results of response time and grammaticality judgment are supporting our
hypothesis, their highly significant correlation being demonstrated through SPSS
statistical analysis with repeated measure test of one way anova, in which p value <
0.001. Therefore we are able to connect with precedent researches in the field of
syntax, semantics, cognition, among others and provide new insights for numeral
classifiers analysis in the field of psycholinguistics.
Selected References
Borer, H., (2005). Structuring Sense, Vol. 1: In Name Only. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Erbaugh, M.S., (1986). Taking stock: the development of Chinese noun classifiers
historically and in young children. In: Craig, C. (Ed.), Noun Classes and
Categorization, (pp. 399-436). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing
Company.
Gil, D., (2013). Numeral Classifiers. In: Dryer, M-S., Haspelmath, M. (eds.) The
World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://wals.info/chapter/55,
Accessed on 2015-01-04.)
Her, O.-S., Hsieh, C.-T., (2010). On the semantic distinction between classifiers and
measure words in Chinese. Language and Linguistics 11 (3), pp. 527-551.
Rummelhart, D., McClelland, J. (1987). Learning the past tense of English verbs:
Implicit rules or parallel distributing processing. In MacWhinney, B. (ed),
Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 195-248). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tai, H-Y.J., Wang, L., (1990). A semantic study of the classifier Tiao. Journal of the
Chinese Language Teachers Association 25 (1), pp. 35--56.
2