Classifiers. Doing Philosophy with Chinese Grammar

Abstract

The approaches to the study of classifiers in the Chinese language developed within traditional and cognitive grammar imply a dualistic framework for the theory of knowledge. This article shows that the theses derived from such a framework within Chinese linguistics, particularly the thesis of the sharp distinction between unit and measure classifiers and that of a certain kind of reduction of sortals to mass terms, are empirically unreliable and poorly explicative. The paper outlines a non-dualistic philosophical framework helpful to address issues in which grammatical and philosophical aspects appear inextricably intertwined, as in the case of classifiers.