English classifier constructions

Abstract

Although not a classifier language, English has an open class of words that are functionally similar to classifiers: a head of lettuce, a herd of cattle, a box of candy . For some words the lexical and collocational properties must be directly represented in the lexicon. Pride would be listed as the collective classifier for lion. Classifiers are not without meaning, however, as is evident in extended senses of these words. Compare a herd of linguists with a flock of linguists . In many cases the classifier meaning follows from the normal meaning and no special information need be included in the lexicon. Novel uses of words in classifier constructions ( a board of statues ) require pragmatic rules of interpretation which depend on the prior existence of conventional classifiers. The appendix, on the syntax of classifiers in English, shows that all the syntactic tests which purport to distinguish among measure phrases, partitives, pseudo-partitives, and complement PPs ultimately fail.