International Workshop on Chinese Numeral Classifiers:
Semantics, Structure and Pragmatics
（小型语言学国际研讨会：量词的语义、结构与语用）
Time：8:40 - 17:40 17 Oct. 2013 (2013年10月17日)
Venue: Café Bar (浙江大学西溪校区人文学院咖啡吧,由图书馆进)
The study of numeral classifiers has been of great interest and controversy among linguists. According to the American cognitive linguist George Lakoff (1986), classifiers are a reflection of mind. The semantic features of classifiers encoded in the classification of nouns reflect principles of human perception and cognition (Aikhenvald 2000, Allan 2001), a fact that has often been argued to offer a unique window into how humans construct and encode representations of the world in their languages. Under this background, the analysis of numeral classifiers in a classifier language like Chinese has recently attracted increasing attention. A number of questions that naturally arise are, how do classifiers emerge? What kind of role do they play in the Chinese grammatical system? How do speakers of Mandarin Chinese as well as those of Chinese dialects use them in everyday conversation? This international workshop, which is hosted by the CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AND COGNITION, ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, aims to bring together scholars from around the world to work towards a comprehensive understanding of the semantics, structure and pragmatics of numeral classifiers and the interactions between them, with a particular reference to Sinitic languages.
Speakers
Andrew Simpson
Professor of Linguistics, University of Southern California. He specializes in syntax and semantics, and his publications include several books by OUP and Benjamins, and numerous articles in Language, Linguistic Inquiry, Lingua, Studies in Language.
Walter Bisang
Professor of Linguistics, University of Mainz. He specializes in linguistic typology with various theoretical as well as sociolinguistic approaches, and his publications include numerous articles in Linguistics, Lingua, Studies in Language, Journal of Pragmatics, etc.
Niina Ning Zhang
Professor of Linguistics, National Chung Cheng University (Taiwan). She specializes in syntax and semantics, and her publications include Coordination in Syntax (CUP), Classifier Structures in Mandarin Chinese (Mouton) and numerous articles in international linguistics journals.
Tang Sze-Wing
Professor of Linguistics, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He specializes in syntax, and his publications include the popular Chinese-written book 《汉语形式句法学》 and numerous articles in Linguistics, Journal of Chinese Linguistics and Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
ZHANG Cheng
Professor of Linguistics, Beijing Language and Culture University. She specializes in Chinese Linguistics and grammaticalization, and her publications include several popular books (e.g.《类型学视野的汉语名量词演变史》and《汉语语序的历史发展》) and numerous articles.
LI Xuping
Lecturer in Linguistics, Zhejiang University. He specializes in formal semantics and descriptive grammar, and his publications include Numeral Classifiers in Chinese (Mouton) and several articles in Lingua, Language and Linguistics.
SHI Wenlei
Lecturer in Chinese Linguistics, Zhejiang University. He specializes in historical syntax and semantics, and his publication includes a book Evolution of Lexicalization Pattern of Motion Events (Commercial Press) and several articles in Zhongguo Yuwen and Dangdai Yuyanxue.
WU Yicheng
Professor of Linguistics, Zhejiang University. He specializes in syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and his publications include several articles in PLoS ONE, Linguistic Inquiry, Lingua, Journal of Pragmatics, Language Sciences, and Journal of Chinese Linguistics.
浙江大学语言与认知研究中心
2013年10月14日
