Relation To Nouns
裤子, kùzi
河, hé
凳子, dèngzi
Different classifiers often correspond to different particular nouns. For example, books generally take the classifier 本 běn, flat objects take 张 (張) zhāng, animals take 只 (隻) zhī, machines take 台 tái, large buildings and mountains take 座 zuò, etc. Within these categories are further subdivisions—while most animals take 只 (隻) zhī, domestic animals take 头 (頭) tóu, long and flexible animals take 条 (條) tiáo, and horses take 匹 pǐ. Likewise, while long things that are flexible (such as ropes) often take 条 (條) tiáo, long things that are rigid (such as sticks) take 根 gēn, unless they are also round (like pens or cigarettes), in which case in some dialects they take 枝 zhī. Classifiers also vary in how specific they are; some (such as 朵 duǒ for flowers) are generally only used with one item, whereas others (such as 条 (條) tiáo for long and flexible things, one-dimensional things, or abstract items like news reports) are much less restricted. Furthermore, there is not a one-to-one relationship between nouns and classifiers: the same noun may be paired with different classifiers in different situations. The specific factors that govern which classifiers are paired with which nouns have been a subject of debate among linguists.
Read more about this topic: Chinese Classifier
Famous quotes containing the words relation to, relation and/or nouns:
“Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. Ones relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (18991973)
“... a worker was seldom so much annoyed by what he got as by what he got in relation to his fellow workers.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877?)
“All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, treble or centuple use and meaning.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)