Introduction: Graphemic classifiers in complex script systems

Abstract

This article explores the role of unpronounced semantic classifiers, also known as graphemic classifiers or determinatives, in three ancient complex scripts: Egyptian, Chinese and Sumerian. These classifiers are silent hieroglyphs, Chinese characters or cuneiform signs that are combined with other signs that carry phonetic information to form a complete written representation of a word. While these classifiers are written and visible, they are not pronounced. They add silent, motivated semantic information related to the meaning of the word. These classifiers can be found in various positions within words, reflecting cultural and referential information. Classifier studies, in general, have gained significant interest at the intersection of linguistic typology, cognitive linguistics, semiotics of scripts and neuroscience. The research field examines classifiers in oral languages, signed languages and complex scripts, emphasizing that regardless of modality they reflect a shared cognitive effort to organize knowledge. It is our hope that the scholarly contributions in this issue will open up a new chapter in classifier studies and in comparative script analysis. Theoretical and analytical work undertaken in the last few decades has been done primarily by individual researchers specializing in one language or script. Our approach combines large-scale corpus data with comparative script analysis carried out by teams of collaborators who can contribute specialized expertise in different ancient writing systems. The research possibilities opened by our newly developed digital tool iClassifier are presented in detail in the other contributions in this issue. This work has laid a strong comparative foundation that we can now build on, to develop new insights into the early history of script development and the commonalities and differences among ancient cultural conceptualizations of the world.