Shanghainese classifiers and measure words
Every Chinese language counts with a classifier, and Shanghainese has a set of its own: some shared with Mandarin, some that Mandarin lost, and one — 个 — that does five jobs where the Mandarin word does one.
Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Shanghainese examples play the recordings from Verbavia’s course, made with a Shanghainese voice; Mandarin examples play a Mandarin voice.
What a classifier is, in thirty seconds
You cannot say two books in Shanghainese. You say two-volume-book: 两本书 lian pen syu ‘two books’. The word in the middle is the classifier, chosen by the shape or kind of the thing counted, and it is compulsory after a number and after a demonstrative. The idea will be familiar from Mandarin; the words are not all the same, and the readings never are.
The everyday set
| Classifier | Counts | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 只 tsah | things generally, animals — and, colloquially, people, where Mandarin uses 个 | 一只猫 ih tsah 'mau ‘a cat’ · 一只苹果 ih tsah bin ku ‘an apple’ |
| 本 pen | books | 两本书 lian pen syu ‘two books’ |
| 张 tsan | flat things: paper, tickets, tables | 一张票 ih tsan phiau ‘a ticket’ |
| 条 diau | long thin things: roads, fish, trousers | 一条路 ih diau lu ‘a road’ |
| 件 jie | clothes, items | 一件衣裳 ih jie i zaon ‘a piece of clothing’ |
| 部 bu | vehicles and machines | 一部电脑 ih bu die nau ‘a computer’ |
| 杯 pe | cups of | 一杯茶 ih pe zo ‘a cup of tea’ |
| 碗 uoe | bowls of | 一碗面 ih uoe mie ‘a bowl of noodles’ |
| 块 khue | pieces, and money | 三块 sae khue ‘three yuan’ |
| 顶 tin | hats | 一顶帽子 ih tin mau tsy ‘a hat’ |
| 趟 thaon | times, occasions | 两趟 lian thaon ‘twice’ |
只 tsah ‘(classifier)’ is the one to notice. In Mandarin it is the classifier for animals and one of a pair; in Shanghainese it is close to a general classifier for things, and Wiktionary records it used “dialectally/humorously” for people. A Mandarin speaker who says 个 for everything will be understood, and will sound like one.
The ones Mandarin does not have
Three classifiers do jobs that Mandarin gives to other words, and each is a small badge of the language:
- 爿 bae ‘(classifier for shops)’ counts shops, restaurants and factories: 一爿店 ih bae tie ‘a shop’, 一爿饭店 ih bae vae tie ‘a restaurant’. Wiktionary gives it for “shops, factories, fields” and, in its older sense, split firewood.
- 桩 tsaon ‘(classifier for matters)’ counts matters and affairs, where Mandarin says 件: 一桩事体 ih tsaon zy thi ‘one matter’, 搿桩事体 geh tsaon zy thi ‘this matter’ — Wiktionary’s own Wu example.
- 眼 ngae ‘a bit; eye’ means a little: 一眼 ih ngae ‘a little’, 一眼眼 ih ngae ngae ‘a tiny bit’. Wiktionary labels the sense Northern Wu; Mandarin uses 点 here.
- 记 ci ‘(a blow)’ counts blows and hits — Wiktionary’s Wu example is 打伊一记, “hit him once” — where Mandarin reaches for 下.
个: five jobs for one syllable
个 gheh ‘(classifier; ’s)’ is the general classifier, as in Mandarin — but that is the least of what it does. Its pronunciation is already a clue that something has happened to it: Wikipedia describes gheq as “a glottalised lenition of the expected pronunciation, ku”, and the course keeps the full reading for the counting word, 一个 ih ku ‘one (of something)’. The linguist Qian Nairong, writing in Xinmin Evening News, lists five functions. Beside counting, 个 is:
- the possessive, doing Mandarin 的’s job: 我个书 ngu gheh syu ‘my book’, 侬个铜钿 non gheh don die ‘your money’;
- the attributive link between a describing phrase and its noun — Qian’s example is 王小姐个学问, “Miss Wang’s learning”;
- a nominaliser, turning an adjective into a thing: 红个, “the red one”;
- a marker of definiteness in front of a noun, “equivalent to English the”;
- a sentence-final particle asserting that something did happen.
That last pair is why Shanghainese can say what looks like a bare classifier and a noun and mean the book. Linguists working on Wu and Cantonese — Cheng and Sybesma, and Li and Bisang — have described classifier-plus-noun without a number as a definite in these languages, a reading Mandarin does not allow. The course does not drill this, but you will hear it.
This and that
A demonstrative takes a classifier too, and the demonstratives are their own words: 搿 geh ‘this’ and 埃 e ‘that’, never Mandarin’s 这 and 那.
- 搿个 geh gheh ‘this one’
- 搿本书 geh pen syu ‘this book’
- 埃只猫 e tsah 'mau ‘that cat’
Every: double the classifier
Reduplicating a classifier means every — Wikipedia’s example is 本本, “every book”. 只只 tsah tsah ‘every one’, 本本 pen pen ‘every book’, 趟趟 thaon thaon ‘every time’. It is a pattern Mandarin shares, and it works with the Shanghainese-only classifiers as readily as the common ones.
Where to go next
Numbers to put in front of these are on the numbers page; the pronouns that 个 attaches to are on the pronouns page; and the sentence around all of it is on the grammar page.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Shanghainese — Pronouns (个 gheq as possessive suffix, “a glottalised lenition of the expected pronunciation, ku”) and Classifiers (reduplication 本本 = every book)
- Qian Nairong (钱乃荣), 上海话中“个”的语法功能, Xinmin Evening News, 9 July 2023 — the five functions of 个
- Wiktionary: 隻 — classifier for animals, things, and “dialectally/humorously” for people
- Wiktionary: 爿 — classifier for shops, factories, fields
- Wiktionary: 樁 — classifier for matters; Wu example 搿樁事體
- Wiktionary: 眼 — Northern Wu “some; a bit”
- Wiktionary: 記 — classifier for blows; Wu example 打伊一記
- Li, X. and Bisang, W. (2012). Classifiers in Sinitic languages: from individuation to definiteness-marking. Lingua 122(4)