Prof . Rong-an Chen has devoted himself to the research of Chinese classifiers
for forty years, and the ultimate achievement is the publication of a dictionary
discussing the usage of Chinese classifiers in ancient time. There has been English
dictionary of contemporary Chinese measure words in the market, but there is not any
English dictionary talking about ancient Chinese classifiers. The absence of such a
kind of dictionary in the book stores motivates him to write this dictionary. The
document data collected in this dictionary begins from the oracle bone inscription in
the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC) to 1949A.D., when the famous Chinese author Lao She’s
(老舍) article《四世同堂》was written.
This dictionary has the following outstanding features:
1. It includes 730 entries, and has incorporated the newly found classifiers from
excavated wooden slip documents, such as ‘絜xié’, ‘ jiăn’, ‘偶ŏu’, ‘秉bĭng’, ‘格
gé’, ‘給j ĭ’, ‘町tǐng’, ‘捼rúo’, ‘陽/揚yáng’, ‘真zhēn’, ‘辟bì’, ‘資zī’ and ‘布bù’,
etc.
2. The author has consulted with a lot of Chinese dictionaries to check the original
definition of classifiers, and chooses the suitable one to explain why the classifier is
used to refer to its objects. This method of explanation can impress the readers with
cognitive and psychological ground why the classifier is used in that way.
3.This dictionary describes detailed historical development of thirty important
classifiers such as ‘枚méi’,‘條tiáo’, ‘个/箇/個ge’, ‘張zhāng’, ‘章zhāng’, ‘口kŏu’,
‘把bă’, ‘隻zhī’,‘枝zhī, ‘莖jīng’, ‘本bĕn’, ‘株zhū’ , ‘頭tóu’, ‘根gēn’, ,‘兩liăng’,
‘科kē’, ‘窠kē’, ‘棵kē’, ‘件jiàn’, ‘具jù’, ‘輩bèi’, ‘事shì’, ‘通tōng’, ‘座zuò’, ‘所
suŏ’, ‘圍wéi’, ‘團tuán’, ‘道dào’, ‘乘shèng’, ‘疊dié’, ‘腰yāo’, etc.
4. This dictionary explains the socio-linguistic function of classifiers, the prevailing
usage of certain classifiers in certain dynasty, the customary practice in commerce
activities and agricultural farming, the manufacturing process through classifier
usage, the evolution of industry evidenced by classifier usage, the financial
measure (such as the issuance of exchange voucher for tea and salt) adopted by
the government to compensate the shortage of revenue evidenced by certain
classifier usage, some prevailing usage of certain time, and the garment evolution
evidenced by the classifiers.