The problem of'classification'is a general problem of life. Biology has shown that
classification abilities are necessal)'for the survival of every organism. Human beings …

This chapter presents elements of the most recent typological work on nominal classification
systems of oral languages published by the author (Grinevald 1999, 2000, 2002, in press) …

Nominal classification systems are generally categorized on the basis of morphosyntactic
criteria. However, the functional motivations for these phenomena do not coincide directly …

This volume addresses the fundamental linguistic question of how the perceived world is
expressed through systems of nominal classification. Leading scholars review the whole …

The following is a taxonomy of the animal kingdom. It has been attributed to an ancient
Chinese encyclopedia entitled the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge: On those …

Almost all languages have some grammatical means for the linguistic categorization of noun
referents.'Classifiers' is an umbrella label for the continuum of noun categorization devices …

The philosophical discussion of nominal classification can be traced back to the Greek
sophistic philosopher Protagoras (485–414 bc). Obviously, discussing the problem of …

Nominal classification is a grammatical device that groups a given language's nouns into
semantic and/or morphologigal groups. These groups are morphosyntactically marked …

In this chapter I review the properties of nominal classification systems. In § 2.2 I first provide
definitions of the most commonly used terms, and in § 2.3 I introduce the main differences …

Many languages have morphosyntactic systems that impose a classification on their nominal
lexicon. The nature of these systems varies widely, ranging from large systems of lexico …