Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the syntactic role of numeral classifiers inside the DPs of Kalhori Kurdish as a classifier language. As a complement of the numeral head, classifiers are used with countable nouns, so that its functional projection (CLP) is placed below weak quantifier phrase (WQP) and above number phrase (NumP). To describe the function of this element, we first represent the models of Chierchia (1998), Borer (2005) and Gebhardt (2009) as the three dominant models in this regard and through the description of Kalhori Kurdish numeral classifiers, we also examine these models adequacy across these new data. According to chierchia’s model, in classifier languages, the denotation of nouns is uniformly mass. Consequently, because of the absence of plurals, a classifier is needed to individuate masses into individuals. mass/count distinction of nouns and plural morphology in Kurdish and optionality of classifiers prove that Chierchia’s idea is not applicable to Kurdish data. Borer (2005) refers to the general complementary distribution between numeral classifiers and number morphology and believes that the role of both number morphology and classifiers is to individuate nouns. Because of the simultaneous presence of classifiers and plural morphemes in the same DP in the language under study, the efficacy of this model is also rejected in describing the data of this language. At last, following Gebhardt’s feature-based model, we consider that the numeral classifiers have some features such as [abs q] and [indiv] and plural morphemes have the more specific [group] feature, in addition to specifying the classifiers function, using these features, we are able to describe their distribution inside Kurdish DPs as well.