Classifiers and Massifiers in Persian

Classifiers indicate the semantic class of a noun. The Persian word for “classifier” is “counting unit” because classifiers are typically used when we deal with the quantity of a noun. In Persian, “NUMBER NOUN” is expressed as “NUMBER CLASSIFIER NOUN”. For example, “two airplanes” is expressed as “two FARVAND airplanes”, where “farvand” is the classifier for airplanes. This classifier cannot be used for other classes of nouns. That is, you cannot use “farvand” for human beings and say “two FARVAND people” or use it for cars and say “two FARVAND cars”. Classifiers are typical of East Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese. It is uncommon in Indo-European languages. English expressions like “two bars of chocolate” and “three loaves of bread” approximate to the concept of classifiers.

Generic Classifiers

Classifiers are always used in spoken Persian. In written Persian, it is sometimes possible to omit classifiers and say for example, “I have two sons” but in spoken Persian, it is always “I have two CLASSIFIER sons”. There are two generic classifiers: تا ⟨tâ⟩ and دانه ⟨dâne⟩, which is pronounced دونه ⟨dune⟩ in colloquial speech. تا is used when the quantity is “more than one” and دانه is used when the quantity is “one”. In the following examples, classifiers are omitted in written Persian but this does not mean that they are always optional in the written language.

English words like “bar” in “two bars of chocolate” and “loaf” in “three loaves of bread” are called “measure words”. Classifiers are not equal to measure words. In the following examples, both a measure word (“tekke”: piece) and a classifier are used:

The following example demonstrates classifiers in interrogative sentences. In answer, English simply says “three” but in Persian, it is “three CLASSIFIER”:

List of Classifiers

The following table lists the most important classifiers and the typical classes of nouns they classify. Many of these classifiers are mainly used in written Persian. For example, اصله is not used for classifying “trees” in spoken Persian; “tâ” and “dâne” (“dune”) generally replace the more specific classifiers.

In written Persian, عدد ⟨adad⟩ is usually used in place of the specific classifier of a noun. For instance, دستگاه is the classifier for “television” but instead of یک دستگاه تلویزیون ⟨yek dastgâh televiziyon⟩, it is possible to write یک عدد تلویزیون ⟨yek adad televiziyon⟩. It is also possible to write یک دانه تلویزیون ⟨yek dâne televiziyon⟩ but عدد is preferred to تا and دانه in the written language.

List of Massifiers

A massifier is a kind of classifier that results in a mass of a noun rather than a single or discrete unit. For example, the classifier for cigarettes is نخ ⟨nax⟩ but it is normally sold in packs. Therefore, بسته in یک بسته سیگار (a pack of cigarettes) is a massifier and not a classifier.