Focusing mainly on classifiers, Numeral Classifiers and Classifier Languages offers a deep investigation of three major classifier languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This book provides detailed discussions well supported by empirical evidence and corpus analyses. Theoretical hypotheses regarding differences and commonalities between numeral classifier languages and other mainly article languages are tested to seek universals or typological characteristics. The essays collected here from leading scholars in different fields promise to be greatly significant in the field of linguistics for several reasons. First, it targets three representative classifier languages in Asia. It also provides critical clues and suggests solutions to syntactic, semantic, psychological, and philosophical issues about classifier constructions. Finally, it addresses ensuing debates that may arise in the field of linguistics in general and neighboring inter-disciplinary areas. This book should be of great interest to advanced students and scholars of East Asian languages.

Focusing mainly on classifiers, Numeral Classifiers and Classifier Languages offers a deep investigation of three major classifier languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This book provides detailed discussions well supported by empirical evidence and corpus analyses. Theoretical hypotheses regarding differences and commonalities between numeral classifier languages and other mainly article languages are tested to seek universals or typological characteristics. The essays collected here from leading scholars in different fields promise to be greatly significant in the field of linguistics for several reasons. First, it targets three representative classifier languages in Asia. It also provides critical clues and suggests solutions to syntactic, semantic, psychological, and philosophical issues about classifier constructions. Finally, it addresses ensuing debates that may arise in the field of linguistics in general and neighboring inter-disciplinary areas. This book should be of great interest to advanced students and scholars of East Asian languages.

This work outlines and systematically defends a mathematically and logically sophisticated understanding of the concept of the 'many', a concept which has been at the centre of many debates for over a century.

Contents:
Introduction
1. Plural Quantifications
1. Singular Versus Plural Quantifications
2. Implication
3. Paraphrase
2. The Logic of Plurals
1. Language
2. Logic
Appx: Partial Axiomatization of the Logic of Plurals
3. Is Two a Property?
1. Why Property Two?
2. A Theory of Plural Properties
3. Two As an Intrinsic Plural Property
4. Concluding Remarks
4. What Numbers Should Be
1. Are Numbers Objects?
2. Plural Properties As Components of Numerical Facts
3. Analysis of Numerical Facts
4. Numbers Are Properties
5. How Sets Are Determined by Their Members
1. The Hierarchy of Sets and the Determination of Sets by Their Members
2. Reference to Set-like Objects
Plural Reference to Mundane Objects
3. Exclusive Reference to Mundane Objects
4. Concluding Remarks
References
Index