Re: Chinese-style measure words in English?

From: John Atkinson (johnacko_at_bigpond.com)
Date: 12/30/04 

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 05:09:35 GMT

"Lee Sau Dan" <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message
news:87zmzw8rql.fsf@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
>>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> writes:

>> That's a little different, as "42 head of cattle" is just a
>> wordy way of saying "42 cattle". OTOH, you can talk of "23
>> slices of bread", but not "23 bread".

    Peter> You can say "42 cows" or "42 bulls" but not "42 cattle."

> Can I say "2 papers"*, "3 sands", "4 rices", "5 grasses", "6 waters",
> etc.?
> [*] paper not meaning "an academic publication".

Yes, when you mean 2 written examinations, 3 beaches or sandstone geological
strata, 4 varieties of rice, 5 police informers, 6 brands of mineral water,
etc. (to pick just one possibility in each case)

In Chinese, I presume this sort of thing would be indicated by using
classifiers different than the "standard" ones for these nouns.

John.

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