Measure words denote a unit of measurement and are used with
mass nouns (uncountable nouns), and in some cases also with
count nouns. For instance, in
English, ''
is a mass noun and thus one cannot say "three muds", but one can say "three drops of mud", "three pails of mud", etc. In these examples, drops
and pails
function as measure words. One can also say "three pails of shells"; in this case the measure word pails
accompanies a count noun (shells''). The term
measure word is also sometimes used to refer to numeral classifiers, which are used with count nouns in some languages. For instance, in English no extra word is needed when saying "three people", but in many
East Asian languages a numeral classifier is added, just as a measure word is added for uncountable nouns in English. For example: {{fs interlinear |lang=zh |italics2=no |italics3=yes |indent=2 {{fs interlinear |lang=zh |italics2=no |italics3=yes |indent=2 There are numerous Chinese measure words, and nouns differ in what measure words they can use. While many linguists maintain a distinction between measure words and numeral classifiers, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. For instance, materials for teaching
Chinese as a second language generally refer to
Chinese classifiers as "measure words". The corresponding Chinese term is (), which can be directly translated as "quantity word". Most measure words in English correspond to
units of measurement or containers, and are themselves count nouns rather than
grammatical particles: • one
quart of water • three
cups of coffee • four
kernels of corn, three
ears of corn, two
bushels of corn Though similar in construction, fractions are not measure words. For example, in "seven-eighths of an apple" the fraction acts as a noun. Compare that to "seven slices of apple" where "apple" is a mass noun and does not require the article "an". Combining the two, e.g. "seven-eighths of a slice of apple", makes it clear the fraction must be a noun referring to a part of another countable noun. In many languages, including the East Asian languages referred to above, the analogous constructions do not include any equivalent of the English
of. In
German, for example,
ein Glas Bier means "a glass [of] beer". This is interesting since both languages are
West Germanic languages, making them closely related to each other. However, the equivalent of the English
of is common in
Romance languages such as "a glass of beer": : : : ==Classifiers versus measure words==