A Comparison of Similarities and Differences Between Measure Words in Japanese and Naxi
This paper by He Jia (Anhui Normal University, 2017) compares measure words in Japanese and Naxi, typologically unrelated languages (agglutinative vs. isolating) sharing SOV order and requiring measure words to attach to numerals rather than stand alone, unlike Chinese's more independent measure words. Drawing on He Jiren's 1985 grammar of Lijiang old-town Naxi, the author compares nominal measure words for people, animals, general objects, collectives, and units of weights/measures, showing correspondences are often one-to-many or many-to-one (e.g., Naxi tər˥ for cabbage maps to five Japanese counters). Verbal measure words correspond far less consistently: Naxi has only two dedicated ones, while others are rendered in Japanese through omission, paraphrase, or mimetic expressions. The paper concludes the two systems are closely comparable despite structural differences.
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