kdavid Posted February 7, 2012 at 01:14 AM Report Posted February 7, 2012 at 01:14 AM Are there any links out there which outline the history of measure words? For example, did they always exsist in Chinese? If not, when did they enter the language? Quote
gato Posted February 7, 2012 at 01:37 AM Report Posted February 7, 2012 at 01:37 AM Like when did people first start saying "a piece of paper" and "a cup of water"? Quote
skylee Posted February 7, 2012 at 02:16 AM Report Posted February 7, 2012 at 02:16 AM If you search 量詞起源 on baidu, you can find several studies on this subject. But the papers do not seem to be freely accessible. But as you are a research student you can figure these things out I suppose. Quote
Michaelyus Posted February 7, 2012 at 02:32 AM Report Posted February 7, 2012 at 02:32 AM MS Erbaugh (1986) Noun classes and categorization says as far back as 商 for "horses, cattle, bows, arrows, jewels, bamboo, books and chariots". But classifiers start proliferating during 漢; and they have changed meaning and scope several times. 1 Quote
Daan Posted February 7, 2012 at 07:47 AM Report Posted February 7, 2012 at 07:47 AM Check out the links on http://pears.lib.ohi...China/hist.html (the last is a particularly complete bibliography on the topic), and see also: Peyraube, A. 1998. “On the history of classifiers in Archaic and Medieval Chinese”, in T’sou, B.K. (ed.), Studia Linguistica Serica, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Chinese Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong Press, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 39-68. 1 Quote
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