Japanese counter words

In Japanese, counter words or counters are measure words used with numbers to count things, actions, and events. Counters are added directly after numbers. There are numerous counters, and different counters are used depending on the kind or shape of nouns that are being described. The Japanese term, , appears to have been literally calqued from the English term ''auxiliary numeral'' used by Basil Hall Chamberlain in ''A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese''.

In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot quantify nouns by themselves (except, in certain cases, for the numbers from one to ten; see below). For example, to express the idea "two dogs" in Japanese one could say either:

but just pasting and together in either order is ungrammatical. Here is the number "two", is the counter for small animals, is the possessive particle (a reversed "of", similar to the " 's" in "John's dog"), and is the word "dog".

Counters are not independent words; they must appear with a numeric prefix. The number can be imprecise: or, less commonly, , can both be used to mean "some/several/many", and, in questions, "what/how many/how much". For example:

Some nouns prefer , as in:
: "how many nights?"
: "I was gone for many days."

Counters are similar in function to the word "pieces" in "two pieces of paper" or "cups" in "two cups of coffee". However, they cannot take non-numerical modifiers. So while "two pieces of paper" translates fairly directly as:

"two green pieces of paper" must be rendered as , akin to "two pieces of green paper".

Just as in English, different counters can be used to convey different types of quantity.

There are numerous counters, and depending on the kind or shape of nouns the number is describing, different counters are used.

Grammatically, counter words can appear either before or after the noun they count. They generally occur ''after'' the noun (following particles), and if used before the noun, they emphasize the quantity; this is a common mistake for English learners of Japanese. For example:

In contrast:

would only be appropriate when emphasizing the number as in responding with " drank ''two'' bottles of beer" to "How many beers did you drink?".

Phrase structure involving numerals and counters

In generative grammar, one proposed structure of Japanese nominal phrases includes three layers of functional projections: #P, CaseP, and QuantifierP. Here, #P is placed above NP to explain Japanese's lack of plural morphology, and to make clear the # head is the stem of such morphology. This structure relies on movement in order to satisfy agreement via extended projection principle features.

Substitution of counters

In Japanese, virtually all nouns must use a counter to express number because Japanese lacks singular/plural morphology. In this sense, virtually all Japanese nouns are mass nouns. This grammatical feature can result in situations where one is unable to express the number of a particular object in a syntactically correct way because one does not know, or cannot remember, the appropriate counting word. With quantities from one to ten, this problem can often be sidestepped by using the traditional numerals (see below), which can quantify many nouns without help. For example, "four apples" is where is the counter, but can also be expressed, using the traditional numeral four, as . These traditional numerals cannot be used to count all nouns, however; some, including nouns for people and animals, require a proper counter (except for 1 and 2 people, which virtually always use variants of the traditional numerals; see exceptions).

Some of the more common counters may substitute for less common ones. For example, (see below) is often used for all animals, regardless of size. However, many speakers will prefer to use the traditionally correct counter, , when speaking of larger animals such as horses. This yields a range of possible counters, with differing degrees of usage and acceptability – for example, when ordering kushikatsu (fried skewers), one may order them as (two skewers), (two sticks), or (two items), in decreasing order of precision.

Counters may be intentionally misused for humorous, stupid, or insulting effects. For example, the phrase ("one man ike an animal), uses , the counter for animals, instead of the typical counters for people.

Table of traditional numerals

Common counters by category

This is a selective list of some of the more commonly used counting words.

Extended list of counters

This list also includes some counters and usages that are rarely used or not widely known; other words can also be used as counters more sporadically.

Euphonic changes

Systematic changes occur when particular numbers precede counters that begin with certain phonemes. For example, + → . The details are listed in the table below.

This can be the result of the morpho-phonological phenomenon of historical sound changes, as shown by the voicing of :

change from glottal to bilabial .

It may also be that some counters carry features which are responsible for for singular, dual, and plural nouns, where singular carries singular, −augmentedfeatures, dual carries ��singular, −augmentedfeatures, and plural carries ��singular, +augmentedfeatures.

These changes are followed fairly consistently but exceptions and variations between speakers do exist. Where variations are common, more than one alternative is listed.

is replaced by either or () followed by a doubled consonant before the voiceless consonants as shown in the table. is the older form, but it has been replaced by in the speech of recent generations.

Exceptions

The traditional numbers are used by and for young children to give their ages, instead of using the age counter (or ) .

Some counters, notably and , use the traditional numerals for some numbers as shown in the table below. Other uses of traditional numbers are usually restricted to certain phrases, such as and (one and two months respectively), (a single word) and (once).

Sometimes common numbers that have a derived meaning are written using different kanji. For example, (alone) is written , and (once more, another time) is normally written instead of . The counter for months (derived from kanji ) is commonly written .

and are alternatives for 7, and are alternatives for 4, and and are alternatives for 9. In those three pairs of options, , and respectively are more commonly used. Some counters, however, notably (people), (month of the year), (day of the month, days), (time of day) and (hours) take certain alternatives only. These are shown in the table below.

While (occurrences) and (0.01 yen, now rarely used) follow the euphonic changes listed above, homophones (stories/floors of a building) and (1000) are slightly different as shown below, although these differences are not followed by all speakers. Thus ("third floor") can be read either or , while ("three times") can only be read .

Ordinal numbers

In general, the counter words mentioned above are cardinal numbers, in that they indicate quantity. To transform a counter word into an ordinal number that denotes position in a sequence, is added to the end of the counter. Thus "one time" would be translated as , whereas "the first time" would be translated as .

This rule is inconsistent, however, as counters without the suffix are often used interchangeably with cardinal and ordinal meanings. For example, can mean both "three floors" and "third floor."

Periods of time

To express a period of time one may add to the following words: , , , (and its irregular readings aside from ), , and . Usage varies depending on the word, though. For example, omitting in the case of would be a mistake, whereas and are both in frequent use. In addition, is rarely heard due to essentially being superfluous, the already functioning to express the length.

Counter for rabbits

The counter for rabbits is (), which is the same as the counter for birds. Usually,  () is used for "small-to-medium-size animals", therefore, the counter for rabbits is an exception. There are many theories about why () is used for rabbits instead of  ().

One of the theories is that in Edo-era, eating four-legged animals was strictly forbidden by the government, and people were not allowed to consume rabbit meat. Then, people started to categorize rabbits as birds so that they can consume rabbit meat, and the counter was also changed from () to (). Another theory is that taste of rabbit meat is similar to bird meat, and in addition, the rabbits were captured using a net just like birds so () is used instead of  (). Takemitsu says that the origin of the word rabbit, , is which describes birds feather: therefore, the counter, (), is used for rabbits.

See also

* Measure words
* Japanese units of measurement

References

OBJ:object

External links

About.com - Counters

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Counter words
Counter words
Counter word
Parts of speech