Noun class

Are nominal classes through the grammar of a language specified classifications of all their nouns in a finite number of groups that are often but not always, include words of similar meaning. Languages ​​that build on a nominal class system, are called class languages. As a special case of noun classes to extract the ( maximum of three) look genera in the Indo-European and Semitic languages ​​.

The group membership of a noun is mandatory by the class identifying affix the Nominalklassifikator be specified. If the noun in conjunction with an adjective or is subject of a sentence, the same classifier can be found in many languages ​​with noun classes again at the dependent adjective or verb. Through this kind of congruence, more precisely, concordance, the cohesion is reinforced within a sentence. Frequently classifiers can also be used to establish a relationship to a word from the previous sentence. Rather than the whole word, it is sufficient in this case to only repeat the classifier.

Noun classes are particularly characteristic of the Bantu languages ​​, and some other branches of Niger - Kordofanischen languages ​​in Africa, such as Fulfulde. There they are also in quite different language families, such as the Pama - Nyunga language Dyirbal in Australia and Sino-Tibetan languages ​​- they are not always to a common root in the sense of genetic linguistic relationship due.

Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek studied in his doctoral thesis in 1851, the noun classes of the Bantu languages. He introduced a numbering system for the noun classes of the Bantu languages ​​, which is still used today. In some Bantu languages, there are over 20 noun classes. The Nominalklassifikatoren are in the Bantu languages ​​always before the actual root word. In the Bantu languages ​​to pronouns, adjectives and verbs the noun class of the noun fit, to which they belong.

Here is an example from the Swahili:

Numeral classifiers

In a number of languages ​​, including Chinese, are for counting numeral classifiers (also: measure words, Zähleinheitswörter ) used. It is in these languages ​​is not possible, a numeral ( numerals ), eg "Three" to connect directly with a noun. Instead, between numeral and noun, a classifier can be inserted to make the noun countable:

• Sān zhāng zhǐ called three "leaf" paper.
• Sān wèi řén called three "person" man.

Here, the classifier is zhāng for flat objects and the polite classifier wèi used for people.

Often the Zähleinheitswort ge ( "piece" ) is in modern colloquial language commonly used, but this can lead to confusion:

• Yi Kuai dàngāo called a "piece" of cake.
• Yi ge dàngāo is actually called a " whole " cake.

In addition, the various Zähleinheitswörter can facilitate comprehension. In the following two sentences, the actual words are different for " fish " and " Jade" only by their emphasis ( yú vs. yù. ), But the numeral classifiers are completely different:

• Yì Tiao yú is called a fish.
• Yi Kuai yù is, a piece of jade.