In linguistics, measure words, known more formally as numeral classifiers and also called counters, count words, counter words, or counting words, are words (or morphemes) that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate the count of nouns. The term "numeral classifier" arises from the fact that measure words often classify the noun they modify into some semantic class closely akin, but distinct from grammatical number or gender. Measure words are most often used when counting. Their use is analogous to English words that represent units or portions of mass nouns, for example one drop of milk, fifty head of cattle, three pieces of cake.

Measure words are part of the grammar of most East Asian languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Malay, Burmese language, Thai, and Hmong, Bengali and the Munda languages just to the west of this area. Among indigenous languages of the Americas measure words occur in the Pacific Northwest, especially among the Tsimshianic languages, and in many languages of Mesoamerica, including Classic Maya. They also occur in some languages of the Amazon Basin (most famously Yagua) and a very small number of West African languages.

In contrast, measure words are entirely absent not only from familiar European languages, but also from northern Asia (Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic and mainland Paleosiberian languages), from Australian Aboriginal languages, and also from indigenous languages of the southern parts of both North and South America. In Austronesian languages, measure words have been acquired as a result of contact with Mon-Khmer languages but the most remote members such as Malagasy and Hawaiian have gradually lost them.

Indo-European languages

In contrast to Asian languages and others, measure words are not grammatical in the case of most Indo-European languages including English.

English

English has a distinction between mass nouns and count nouns, and employs a small number of fixed words that can be considered semantically-oriented counters. Consider the following:

• five head of cattle (said by ranchers)
• ten stem of roses (said by florists)
• three pair of pants (or pairs)

Note that the preceding measure words are singular in form. If they were plural, the first two phrases would have different meanings.

Most measure words in English are more accurately called units of measurement. They are normal count nouns, not grammatical particles. A measure word is the only way to quantify a mass noun:

• three cups of coffee
• four kernels of corn, three ears of corn, two bushels of corn
• one litre of water

A water or a corn (taken in the sense of grain) do not make sense and are almost never heard.

With count nouns, however, measure words are unnecessary. A number alone can be used as an adjective to modify the noun to be counted:

• four pencils
• three horses

However you cannot say "three cattles".

English also features some cases in which the number and the measure word are combined as a single word: for example, when counting

• golfers: twosome, threesome, foursome...
• musicians: solo, duet, trio, quartet...
• wombmates: twins, triplets, quadruplets....

See also collective noun for a concept related to measure words that is found in English.

Bengali

Although not typical for an Indo-European language, Bengali makes use of measure words. Every noun in this language must have its corresponding measure word (MW) when used with a numeral or other quantifier. Most nouns take the generic measure word ţa, although there are many more specific measure words, such as jon, which is only used to count humans. Still, the number of measure words in Bengali certainly does not compare to that of Chinese or Japanese. As in Chinese, Bengali nouns are not inflected for number.

Similar to the situation in Chinese, measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e.g. aţ biŗal instead of aţ-ţa biŗal "eight cats") would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, omitting the noun and preserving the measure word is grammatical and not uncommon to hear. For example, Shudhu êk-jon thakbe. (lit. "Only one-MW will remain.") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain.", since jon can only be used to count humans. The word lok "person" is implied.

East Asian languages

Languages such as Ainu, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai use measure words as the standard way of indicating the count of the number of items, rather than, as in most Indo-European languages, allowing numbers to count a noun directly.

Korean

Main article: Korean count word

Korean uses special measure or counting words to count objects and events.

In English, one must say, "two sheets of paper" rather than "two papers". In Korean, the term jang (장) is used to count sheets, or paper-like material in general. So "ten bus tickets" would be beoseu pyo yeol jang (버스 표 열 장), literally, "bus ticket ten 'sheets'".

There are two systems of numerals in Korean: native Korean and Sino-Korean. Native Korean numerals are used with most counter words. yeol gwa (열 과) would mean 'ten lessons' while sip gwa (십 과) would mean 'lesson ten.' Sino-Korean numerals are used with many time counters.

Burmese

Main article: Burmese numerical classifiers

In Burmese, measure words, in the form of particles, are used when counting or measuring nouns. They immediately follow the numerical quantification. Nouns to which the classifiers refer to can be omitted if the context allows, because many classifiers have implicit meanings.

Chinese

Main article: Chinese measure word

In Mandarin, nouns are not conjugated for singular or plural numerus; a noun without a classifier can be translated as either singular or plural. Classifiers are used when enumerating a count noun:

Measure words are not used in Classical Chinese. In all dialects of modern Chinese, however, measure words are obligatory with enumeration of all count nouns; yī rén in modern Chinese when used as a measure word is grammatically incorrect. The choice of a classifier for each noun is a matter of grammar, is somewhat arbitrary–though frequently corresponds with a relatively well-defined classification of objects based on physical characteristics–and must be memorized by learners of Chinese. The classifier assigned to a noun often has an imagistic association with that object. Thus, zhāng has table as one of its meanings, and is used for large and thin objects. (Though uncommon, it is even possible to omit the noun if the choice of classifier makes the intended noun obvious–like the Bengali example above.) Not all classifier words derive from nouns. For example, the word bǎ can also be a verb meaning to grab, and is the measure word for objects that have handles.

Japanese

Main article: Japanese counter word

In Japanese grammar, most nouns are effectively mass nouns, and measure words must be used with a number when counting them. The appropriate measure word is chosen based on the kind and shape of the noun, and combines with the numeral, sometimes adopting several different forms. This is similar to noun classes in many African languages, except that the classifiers are used only when counting.

See also

• Analytic language
• Classifier (linguistics)
• Collective noun
• Grammatical number
• Korean count word
• Mass noun
• Numeral
• Quantification
• Unit of measurement