Editing Chinese classifier (section)

=== Classifier phrases ===
[[File:Shang_dynasty_inscribed_tortoise_plastron.jpg|right|thumb|An [[oracle bone inscription]] from the [[Shang dynasty]]. Such inscriptions provide some of the earliest examples of the number phrases that may have eventually spawned Chinese classifiers.|alt=An off-white, ovular turtle shell with an inscription in ancient Chinese]]
[[Historical linguistics|Historical linguists]] have found that phrases consisting of nouns and numbers went through several structural changes in [[Old Chinese]] and [[Middle Chinese]] before classifiers appeared in them. The earliest forms may have been ''Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;Noun'', like English (e.g. 'five horses'), and the less common ''Noun&nbsp;–&nbsp;Number'' ('horses five'), both of which are attested in the [[oracle bone script]]s of Pre-Archaic Chinese (circa 1400&nbsp;BCE to 1000&nbsp;BCE).<ref name=Peyraube107Morev78-9>{{Harvnb|Peyraube|1991|p=107}}; {{Harvnb|Morev|2000|pp=78–79}}</ref> The first constructions resembling classifier constructions were ''Noun&nbsp;–&nbsp;Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;Noun'' constructions, which were also extant in Pre-Archaic Chinese but less common than ''Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;Noun''. In these constructions, sometimes the first and second nouns were identical (''N1&nbsp;–&nbsp;Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;N1'', as in "horses five horses") and other times the second noun was different, but semantically related (''N1&nbsp;–&nbsp;Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;N2''). According to some historical linguists, the ''N2'' in these constructions can be considered an early form of count-classifier and has even been called an "echo classifier"; this speculation is not universally agreed on, though.<ref name=Peyraube108>{{Harvnb|Peyraube|1991|p=108}}</ref> Although true count-classifiers had not appeared yet, mass-classifiers were common in this time, with constructions such as "wine&nbsp;–&nbsp;six&nbsp;–&nbsp;{{uline|yǒu}}" (the word {{lang|zh|酉}}&nbsp;{{Transliteration|zh|yǒu}} represented a wine container) meaning "six {{Transliteration|zh|yǒu}} of wine".<ref name=Peyraube108/> Examples such as this suggest that mass-classifiers predate count-classifiers by several centuries, although they did not appear in the same word order as they do today.<ref name=Peyraube110Wang171>{{Harvnb|Peyraube|1991|p=110}}; {{Harvnb|Wang|1994|pp=171–72}}</ref>

It is from this type of structure that count-classifiers may have arisen, originally replacing the second noun (in structures where there was a noun rather than a mass-classifier) to yield ''Noun&nbsp;–&nbsp;Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;Classifier''. That is to say, constructions like "horses five horses" may have been replaced by ones like "horses five {{uline|CL}}", possibly for stylistic reasons such as avoiding repetition.<ref name=Morev78-9>{{Harvnb|Morev|2000|pp=78–79}}</ref> Another reason for the appearance of count-classifiers may have been to avoid confusion or ambiguity that could have arisen from counting items using only mass-classifiers—i.e. to clarify when one is referring to a single item and when one is referring to a measure of items.<ref name=Wang172>{{Harvnb|Wang|1994|p=172}}</ref>

Historians agree that at some point in history the order of words in this construction shifted, putting the noun at the end rather than beginning, like in the present-day construction ''Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;Classifier&nbsp;–&nbsp;Noun''.<ref name=Peyraube106Morev78-9>{{Harvnb|Peyraube|1991|p=106}}; {{Harvnb|Morev|2000|pp=78–79}}</ref> According to historical linguist Alain Peyraube, the earliest occurrences of this construction (albeit with mass-classifiers, rather than count-classifiers) appear in the late portion of [[Old Chinese]] (500&nbsp;BCE to 200&nbsp;BCE). At this time, the ''Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;Mass-classifier'' portion of the ''Noun&nbsp;–&nbsp;Number&nbsp;–&nbsp;Mass-classifier'' construction was sometimes shifted in front of the noun. Peyraube speculates that this may have occurred because it was gradually reanalyzed as a [[modifier (linguistics)|modifier]] (like an adjective) for the head noun, as opposed to a simple repetition as it originally was. Since Chinese generally places modifiers before modified, as does English, the shift may have been prompted by this reanalysis. By the early part of the [[Common Era]], the nouns appearing in "classifier position" were beginning to lose their meaning and become true classifiers. Estimates of when classifiers underwent the most development vary: [[Wang Li (linguist)|Wang Li]] claims their period of major development was during the [[Han dynasty]] (206&nbsp;BCE – 220&nbsp;CE),<ref name=He3>{{Harvnb|He|2001|p=3}}</ref> whereas Liu Shiru estimates that it was the [[Northern and Southern dynasties]] period (420–589 CE),<ref>{{Harvnb|Wang|1994|pp=2, 17}}</ref> and Peyraube chooses the [[Tang dynasty]] (618–907 CE).<ref name=Peyraube111-117>{{Harvnb|Peyraube|1991|pp=111–17}}</ref> Regardless of when they developed, Wang Lianqing claims that they did not become grammatically mandatory until sometime around the 11th century.<ref name=Wang3>{{Harvnb|Wang|1994|p=3}}</ref>

Classifier systems in many nearby languages and language groups (such as [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] and  the [[Tai languages]]) are very similar to the Chinese classifier system in both grammatical structure and the parameters along which some objects are grouped together. Thus, there has been some debate over which language family first developed classifiers and which ones then borrowed them—or whether classifier systems were native to all these languages and developed more through repeated [[language contact]] throughout history.<ref name=Erbaugh401Wang2>{{Harvnb|Erbaugh|1986|p=401}}; {{Harvnb|Wang|1994|p=2}}</ref>