A semantic study on classifiers in hakka

• Main Author: 鍾佳青
• Other Authors: Jen-i Li
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/j34sws

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語學系 === 97 === ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of the Hakka classifier system from the semantic perspective. It deals not only with the general classification of Hakka classifiers, but concerns the semantic principles underlying the classification of Hakka individual classifiers, which reveal most about the inherent properties of the objects. The first part of this thesis investigates the classification of Hakka classifiers. We arrive at a general classification of it in order to get a whole picture of the system. Eight types of classifiers are identified. The second part of the present study examines the classification of Hakka individual classifiers based on the semantic features proposed by Tai (1992, 1994) and Allan (1977) , including animacy, shape, size, consistency, and parts of object. We propose that the major semantic category for classification is animacy. Both the animal category and the non-shape category are further subcategorized based on the semantic principle-- part of object. The third part of this research focuses on the categorical structure of zak2 (隻). It is demonstrated that zak2 has two major semantic domains: animate and inanimate. The inanimate category can be further divided into different subcategories. The numerous semantic domains that zak2 possesses may explain its high frequency in daily usage. At last, the present study investigates the categorical structures of functional classifiers in Hakka, including gien24 (間), dung5(棟), zak2(座). All the three classifiers are building classifiers, but their prototypical members are different from each other. The result shows that they can be further analyzed in terms of specific semantic features such as shape, size, and function.