The Parameterization of Plural Markings in Classifier Languages

Although the presence and absence of classifiers is a major difference which draws a distinction between classifier languages and non-classifier languages, another significant difference can be found in the properties of plural markers. The distinct roles of plural markers in classifier languages are investigated in this paper. It will be shown that the plural markers in these languages mark more than the plurality of referents of nouns, unlike plural markers in non-classifier languages such as the –s in English. With regard to the fundamental nature of the plural marker in classifier languages, we raise the following questions: (i) are plural markers in classifier languages really optional?; (ii) if not, what kind of semantic or pragmatic function(s) do they perform?; and, (iii) in what way(s) are they different from plural markers in non-classifier languages? The goal of this paper is to answer these questions and to account for the distinct properties of plural markers in classifier languages. Our discussion of these issues is organized as follows: In sections 2.1 and 2.2, the properties of the Chinese plural marker –men and the Japanese plural marker –tachi are examined. In section 2.3, the distributional and semantic properties of Korean plural marker –tul are explored. In section 2.4, we discuss „the plurality split‟ phenomena and show how it can be applied to the micro-parametric differences of plural marking in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. In section 2.5, the concepts of specificity and definiteness are reconsidered. It will be shown how these two closely-related notions are represented in languages. Section 3 concludes this paper.