Defining numeral classifiers and identifying classifier languages of the world

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a precise definition of numeral classifiers, steps to identify a numeral classifier language, and a database of 3,338 languages, of which 723 languages have been identified as having a numeral classifier system. The database, named World Atlas of Classifier Languages (WACL), has been systematically constructed over the last 10 years via a manual survey of relevant literature and also an automatic scan of digitized grammars followed by manual checking. The open-access release of WACL is thus a significant contribution to linguistic research in providing (i) a precise definition and examples of how to identify numeral classifiers in language data and (ii) the largest dataset of numeral classifier languages in the world. As such it offers researchers a rich and stable data source for conducting typological, quantitative, and phylogenetic analyses on numeral classifiers. The database will also be expanded with additional features relating to numeral classifiers in the future in order to allow more fine-grained analyses.