Measure words in English

Question

Hello, sorry if this topic has been covered already, but I have been unable to locate a discussion about this anywhere. I'm familiar with 'collective nouns' such as 'a HERD of elephants' or 'a DECK of cards' but these words are only used for groups of things.

I was wondering about words of this type used for individual items, such as 'a SHEET of paper' or 'an EAR of corn'. I was wondering what part of speech these words fall under.

In Chinese, all nouns have these words and they form a part of speech called 'measure words' in Chinese grammar. I'm fairly certainly, though, that they have another name in English grammar.

Canadian45 · Accepted Answer

UndergraduateHello Hello to you too, and welcome to the forums!
, sorry if this topic has been covered already, but I have been unable to locate a discussion about this anywhere. That's because the English language doesn't use the term "measure words", although we do have them. Examples are 'a cup of tea', 'a pound of butter, 'an inch of rain', a year of misery'. If you search "measure words" on this site, you won't find any discussion of them here. And before I started studying Chinese about 17 years ago, I possibly never heard the term "measure word" used.
I'm familiar with 'collective nouns' such as 'a HERD of elephants' or 'a DECK of cards' but these words are only used for groups of things .I was wondering about words of this type used for individual items, such as 'a SHEET of paper' or 'an EAR of corn'. Yes, and you will notice that all the examples you and I have given of English "measure words" are used with nouns that are primarily noncountable. We never use measure words with countable nouns like 'cars'. 'people' or rabbits'. We just say things like 'one car', 'four people', and 'seventeen rabbits'.
I was wondering what part of speech these words fall under. Those English measure words are all nouns.
In Chinese, all nouns have these words and they form a part of speech called 'measure words' in Chinese grammar. I'm fairly certainly, though, that they have another name in English grammar. No, English does not have pure measure words like the Chinese 'ge', for eample. And there is a good reason for that; English just doesn't need those words. Chinese needs them, and below is one example of why Chinese uses measure words.

Because 'yi yue' means January', you need to say 'yi ge yue' to mean one month. This is a consequence of Chinese being a much simpler language in some aspects of its grammar. So, it has to use measure words to shoow different meanings. And as a result of the simpler grammar coupled with measure words, some parts of the Chinese language are easier to learn than some parts of English is.

Canadian45 · Answer

canadian45....And as a result of the simpler grammar coupled with measure words, some parts of the Chinese language are easier to learn than the corresponding parts of English are.

Undergraduate · Answer

canadian45 That's because the English language doesn't use the term "measure words", although we do have them. Examples are 'a cup of tea', 'a pound of butter, 'an inch of rain', a year of misery'.

Thanks for your response. I am aware that we're talking about nouns in phrases liked "a BAR of soap" or "a LOAF of bread", but these nouns have a very specific function, and I was pretty sure they had a name.

When I brought up this subject to a colleague, I was advised to look up "classifiers", which seems to be the answer to my question. I had never heard of this term before, but I'm not surprised as I've only found references to it in advanced discussions (read: theses and university-level books) about English grammar. Oddly, the references to classifiers that I've found are from either from authors with backgrounds in foreign languages or discussions about ESL. It seems to be that this aspect of the English language doesn't get much attention for whatever reason.

Just thought I'd share this tidbit.

Have a Great New Year!

CalifJim · Answer

Undergraduate"classifiers"

This is the term I am more familiar with, but (I am told) English does not have classifiers, strictly speaking because they only come up in English to "put boundaries on substances", so to speak. (bottle of, cup of, glass of, loaf of, ...) Maybe we should start using the term more generally.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

It is not at all unusual for highly technical grammatical terms like this to be found only in advanced ESL sources.  English grammar is only studied superficially by native speakers, typically only up to the 8th grade, and mainly with a usage emphasis rather than technical grammatical emphasis.  After the 8th grade, grammar is rarely touched on, and students are expected to pick up the all the advanced grammar and usage by assimilation in the English literature they read in "English" class.  Thus, native English speakers know all the grammar and usage by instinct, and have a difficult time explaining things from a technical point of view.

Canadian45 · Answer

UndergraduateIn Chinese, all nouns have these words and they form a part of speech called 'measure words' in Chinese grammar.

I overlooked this in my first response, so I would like to have your comments now.
Actually, there are some Chinese nouns that don't have measure words. As you know, two prominent ones are the nouns for 'day' and 'year'. I am assuming that these exceptions exist for some particular reason, and maybe there are other exceptions. I await your comments on these and other exceptions that may exist..

Happy 2013 to you and your family too!

Measure words in English

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