Numeratives in the languages of Asia and beyond

This paper gives an overview of some of the conceptual issues that have arisen in the literature on sortal numeral classifiers. I propose the term numerative and offer a clear definition of the concept for purposes of comparative and general linguistics. I note that it is not very helpful to define numeratives as kinds of “classifiers”, and that it is best to characterize numeratives in contrast to mensuratives (or measure words), even though many languages (especially in East and Southeast Asia) use a very similar construction for both. The proposed definition includes elements that also occur in other adnominal loci, so that the numerative concept may not be very natural, but this reflects the history and current state of research, which has been heavily influenced by Asian languages.