"The use of numerals in counting differs quite dramatically across languages. Some languages grammaticalise a contrast between count nouns (three cats, three books) vs 'non-count' or mass nouns (milk, mud), marking this distinction in different ways. Others use a system of numer…
Biographical note: Xuping Li, Center for the Study of Language and Cognition, Zhejiang University, China. This book studies the syntax and semantics of numeral classifiers in Mandarin and other Chinese languages. It explores how Chinese classifiers are semantically interpreted …
This book studies the syntax and semantics of numeral classifiers in Mandarin and other Chinese languages. It explores how Chinese classifiers are semantically interpreted in syntactic contexts and how semantic functions of classifiers are realized at the syntactic level. The bo…
"This volume explores the expression of the concepts count and mass in human language and probes the complex relation between seemingly incontrovertible aspects of meaning and their varied grammatical realizations across languages. In English, count nouns are those that can be c…
Number is the most underestimated of the grammatical categories. It is deceptively simple yet the number system which philosophers, logicians and many linguists take as the norm - namely the distinction between singular and plural (as in cat versus cats) - is only one of a wide …
This book provides an introduction to the grammatical category of number, surveying many languages to reveal that the world's linguistic resources are richer than even many linguists realise. Aimed at linguistic students, it is the first book-length treatment of this topic and c…
The Nembe counting system might have been fundamentally based on the arrangement of the digits that makes up the human fingers and toes because these digits constitute the most handy calculating device available to any human being.