Classifier (Athapaskan linguistics)

In Athabaskan linguistics, the term classifier is traditionally used for a class of verbal prefixes that modifiy the transitivity or valence of the verb in some way.

Examples

Slave (Rice 1989:455)

• tse dé-Ø-k'ǫ́ ‘the wood is burning’

• tse dé-h-k'ǫ́ ‘she burned the wood’

The prefix h- is a transitivizing classifier.

Comments

• “This term...is a clear misnomer since so-called classifiers do not classify either verb lexical entries or verb arguments — as it was originally supposed — in any reasonable sense. .. The unhappy nature of the term “classifier” is recognized by many Athabaskanists (see Krauss 1969, Cook 1984:162, Young and Morgan 1987:117, Thompson 1989:9, Rice 1989:439). However, the listed authors still use the term preferring to preserve the continuous tradition. I propose to abandon this harmful term that keeps misleading both newcomers to the field of Athabaskan linguistics and non-Athabaskan linguists.” (Kibrik 1993:...)

Synonym

• transitivity indicator (proposed by Kibrik 1993:48)

Origin

The term dates back “to the early work by Boas on Tlingit and by Sapir on Athabaskan” (Kibrik 1993:48).

References

• Cook, Eung-Do. 1984. A Sarcee grammar. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
• Kibrik, Andrej A. 1993. "Transitivity increase in Athabaskan languages." In: Comrie, Bernard & Polinsky, Maria (eds.) 1993. Causatives and transitivity. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 47-67.
• Krauss, Michael. 1969. "On the classsifiers in Athapaskan, Eyak and Tlingit verb." Supplement to International Journal of American Linguistics 35.2:49-83.
• Rice, Keren. 1989. A grammar of Slave. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Thompson, Chad. 1989. "Pronouns and voice in Koyukon Athabaskan: A text-based study." International Journal of American Linguistics 55.1: 1-24.
• Young, Robert W. & Morgan, William. 1987. The Navajo language: A grammar and colloquial dictionary. 2nd edition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.