A Comparative Study of Indonesian and Japanese Classifiers

--Classifiers belong to open class noun. All languages are naturally occupied with classifiers, yet the usage is various depending on how the language treats them. Japanese language, as an obligatory-classifier language, makes the classifiers compulsory, in contrast with an optional-classifier language, Indonesian language. Despite this, Japanese and Indonesian languages treat the classifiers syntactically and semantically similar. This article aims at revealing, both the semantic and syntactic differences and similarities between Japanese and Indonesian classifiers. The analysis shows that in terms of structure, Japanese and Indonesian classifiers are similar; however, each language demonstrates difference in classifier use. Japanese language has nineteen frequently used classifiers including two types which can replace others. They can change their form by fusing with its numeral adjective as in hitori (ichi-nin), ippiki (ichi-hiki), without affecting the whole meaning of the noun phrase . Indonesian classifiers cover of twenty-two optional types. Classifiers are often omitted in spoken form to avoid formality and some of them can also change their form by adding se-prior to the numeral adjective to indicate “one object” as in sebatang rokok .


Introduction
There has been an endless question on how to measure certain thing right, and a classifier is the answer for this.However, a new problem arises since classifiers can sometimes be baffling because not all languages are naturally "blessed" with closed class of classifiers.Japanese language is an obligatory classifier language (Sudo, 2016:1).Numerals cannot modify noun or noun phrase in Japanese resulting in diversity in classifiers.Classifiers in Japanese have several roles i.e., modifying noun or noun phrases and verbs or adjectives, as in construction: ni hiki wo kau two Cl particle raise (Bender and Siegel, 2005) The classifiers (hiki) and numeral adjectives (ni) modify the verb (kau).Further example is presented in the following construction, sannin mo ii desu, two people (Cl) particle good this construction has the adjective (ii) modified by the classifier phrase (futari).Based on the examples, however, it is unacceptable to say (noun) ni o kau or san mo ii desu.
As a part of South East Asian region and Austronesian language, Indonesian language comes in different nature where classifiers are an open class type and is more optional to use either in constructions, phrases, utterances, or sentences.For instance, the noun phrase tiga bebek (three ducks) has exactly the same meaning as tiga ekor bebek.Therefore, the speakers have more freedom in choosing whether or not they will use the classifiers.Nevertheless, situation sometimes hold important role is the presence of classifiers some native speakers find classifiers too formal to be used when speaking.This results in minimum insight regarding the use of classifiers and unfortunately, classifiers seem to be obsolete due to this kind of nature.
Japanese and Indonesian classifiers may present difference in use, some similarities are still found, nonetheless.The notion of semantic classifiers is sometimes confusing since many speakers still find it hard to use it in communication.Therefore, this article focuses on three problems, i.e., what are the common classifiers used in Japanese and Indonesian language and how are they used in sentences?The second problem the continues on what are the function lies within classifiers in both language?
The last problem arises due to the question what are the similarities and differences of the Japanese and Indonesian classifiers?
The problems lead to comparison between both languages' classifiers and result in findings related the nature of classifiers in phrases and constructions; how they are similar and different to one another in terms meaning, structure, and function.Furthermore, this issue becomes interesting since there are some classifiers used and having similar meaning in both Indonesian and Japanese language.By paying attention to Japanese as a rich-in-classifiers language and Indonesian as the optional one, this research tries to compare and discuss classifiers through the syntax and semantic point of view.

Research Method
Data were collected by using documentation method along with note taking technique.The documentation method focuses on language use either spoken or written.Alanshari (2022:203) argues that this method is a way of obtaining data by paying attention to the existing event.The analysis was carried out descriptively by using a distributional method, meaning that the language is analyzed by using the determinants, in this case the cohesive devices, found within it.To support this method, the expansion technique (Teknik perluasan) is used to analyse the unit of speech and to reveal the significance of a language, in this case the classifiers and its construction.The results are presented by combining formal and informal method; descriptively presenting description by using words with the presence of tables.Analysis is presented based on the theory of Cohesive Devices and the Functional Grammar proposed by Halliday and Hasan.
There has been a number of researchers giving notions regarding classifiers and turning them as study object.Lock (in Aziz, 2009:1) defines classifiers as words which subclassify the thing.Classifiers identify a subclass which the thing either is or is not a member of.Lehrer (1985:1) stated that classifier is constructions which include partitives, pseudo-partitives, and measure phrases.Allan (in Lehrer, 2016:111) lists seven categories of classifiers as follows: (1) Unit counters: a piece of equipment, two head of cattle.
(3) Number set classifiers: many hundreds of people, dozens of birds.(4) Collective classifiers: Two clumps of grass, a herd of animals.(5) Varietal classifiers: two species of wheat, all kinds of flowers.(6) Measure classifiers: two pounds of cabbage, one liter of wine, a box of candy, a bowl of sugar.(7) Arrangement classifiers: Two rows of beans, three stacks of books.In addition to these, Jelinek (in Lehrer, 1986:111) pointed out another idea of classifiers called metaphorical comparison classifiers which compare things metaphorically, such as a bear of a man, a slip of a girl, and a dream of a house.Other types of classifiers proposed by Croft (2015:4)  Syntactically, classifiers are constructed by (Det1) N of (Det2) N. A more complex structure, however, has been previously explained where classifiers consist of partitives, pseudo-partitives, and measure phrases.Partitives contain a determiner between of and the following noun phrase (NP) as can be seen in these examples where her and that are the partitives, i.e., a number of her objections and three pounds of that meat.Pseudo-partitives, in contrast, have no determiner between the of and the following NP, e.g., a bunch of flowers and a selection of commentaries.The last element, measure phrases is constructed by quantifier or quantifier-like nouns as in many objections and a number of objections.In spite of this structure, noun phrases with classifiers are mainly constructed by numeral adjectives, classifiers, and nouns.
Semantically, classifiers influence the meaning of a noun phrase, for instance a piece of wood, a flock of birds, and a head of lettuce.These noun phrase, are constructed by piece, flock, and head as the classifiers and wood, birds, and lettuce as the head of the noun phrase.As heads, those words still have their literal meaning.However, the presence of classifiers gives more specific meaning to the heads.The classifier piece, according to Oxford online dictionary, means an amount of something that has been cut or separated from the rest of it, if it is combined with wood it refers to the part of the wood (small part of wood) that has been taken from the whole wood.The same case happens in the second noun phrase where flock refers to a group of sheep, goats or birds of the same type.Its combination with birds will mean a group of bird with the same type.The last classifier, head is rarely encountered and shows a tendency to be a noun that modifies another noun.Yet it is a classifier to state that something is round (having similar shape to a head).In addition to these, there are other classifiers semantically contributing to meaning of the phrase, for instance bottle and cup (referring to the thing's container) as in a bottle of water and a cup of tea; stack and pile (referring to the way something is arranged) as in a stack of book and a pile of paper; and day and month (referring to the periods of time) as in one day and six months.
This short description about classifiers has finally led to the notion of semantic classifier.This concept basically means words (mostly nouns) which give or complete the meaning of another noun by modifying it within a noun phrase.In this case, the classifier acts as a modifier whereas the noun is the head of the phrase.

Results
Japanese and Indonesian classifiers demonstrate different behavior when it comes to usage (both in sentence and utterance).The former requires classifiers in either sentences or utterances; the latter, however, does not.Syntactically, Japanese classifiers form two different patterns whenever combined with numeral adjective, i.e.,

This pattern is possible in as in Bensu (N1) o (particle) kyuu (numeral adjective) dai (Cl).
In this construction, the numeral adjective and classifier modify the noun, i.e., Bensu.Another role is showed another possible pattern can such as:

Numeral adjective + Cl
This pattern is used in the construction hitori (N 1 + Cl) (ichi-nin) wa kowai kara iyadayo! it is interesting to notice that in the second pattern, classifier turn a numeral adjective to modify the adjective i.e., kowai.
Indonesian language presents different structure with the following pattern,

Numeral adjective + Cl + N 1
Ismail tetap tidak punya apa-apa kecuali tiga kerat roti.The bold typed phrase consists of a numeral adjective (tiga), a classifier (kerat), and a noun (roti).In Indonesian language, it is still acceptable to inverse the phrase into roti tiga kerat, to follow the following pattern: Another characteristic spotted in Indonesian language is that it is also possible to dismiss the classifiers to avoid formality, therefore it is very common to meet this phrase, tiga roti yet the meaning remains the same as in tiga kerat roti.Japanese language, in contrast, is unable to directly use a numeral adjective and noun altogether due to the characteristic of the numeral; it cannot directly modify a noun.Thus, in the phrase ichirin no hana consisting of ichi (numeral adjective), rin (a classifier), no (particle), and hana (noun), rin is obligatory since the word ichi cannot directly modify hana.

Japanese Classifiers
Japanese language is well-known as an obligatory-classifier language.According to Sudo (2016:1) what makes Japanese an obligatory classifier language is not the semantics of nouns but the semantics of numerals.Specifically, evidence is presented that numerals in Japanese cannot function as predicates on their own, which is taken as evidence that the extensions of numerals in Japanese are exclusively singular terms.In other words, classifier is required for the numerals to modify a noun phrase, for example: (1) ichi*(-rin)-no-hana one-cl-gen-flower 'one flower' (Sudo, 2006:2) This phrase is constructed by the numeral adjective (ichi), classifier (rin), particle (no) and the noun (hana).Rin is a specific classifier to count flowers and it should accompany the occurrence of ichi since ichi cannot directly modify the noun hana.Therefore, it can be stated that ichi rin now can be the modifier of the noun (head of the noun phrase) hana.Japanese language has 350 classifiers, or counters and are divided into several groups, i.e., Most of the classifiers are formed based on the things or noun they modify, for example the classifiers nichi, gatsu, and nen, used for counting days month, and year, which respectively mean day, month, and year.

Indonesian Classifiers
In contrary to Japanese language, Indonesian is not an obligatory classifier language.This is due to the nature of numeral adjective that can directly modify a noun, for instance empat burung, lima kuda, sepuluh kendaraan, etc.Therefore, a noun phrase may have the same meaning whether or not the classifier is used.In several occasion, classifers are sometimes omitted to make the sentence more concise, natural, and casual.According to Chaer, as quoted by Cerianti (2011:45), stated that kata bantu bilangan adalah kata yang digunakan sebagai tanda pengenal benda dan digunakan dibelakang kata bilangan dalam menyebutkan jumlah suatu benda (classifiers are the words used behind the numerals as a noun identifier in counting things).Tata Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia divides classifiers into several types based on their functions which are presented as follows.Unlike Japanese, classifiers are optional in Indonesian language.Thus, it is perfectly fine to say tiga roti instead of tiga kerat roti.However, just like Japanese, Indonesian language has classifier that can replace other classifiers in the sentence, i.e. buah, therefore, all of the classifiers in the noun phrases, such as tiga kerat roti, satu patah kata, dan satu atau dua potong pakaian can be replaced with buah, to be tiga buah roti, satu buah kata, dan satu atau dua buah pakaian.
In general, Indonesian language has less classifier than Japanese, since Japanese has 350 classifiers to be used.However, only 19 of them are frequently used by the speakers.Surprisingly, despite its characteristic as an optional-classifier language, Indonesian language has 22 classifiers that are quite popular and frequently used by the native speakers although omission often occurs in spoken variation.Most of these classifiers are also formed based on the noun following them.

The Comparison
In terms of structure, Japanese classifiers are similar to those in Indonesian language.Japanese classifiers occur together with their numeral adjectives as in Ben wa Bensu o kyuu dai motteimasu, watashi no heya wa junikai ni arimasu, boku no tanjoubi wa ichi gatsu tsuitachi desu.In general, the structure of their noun phrase are presented as follows: The N 1 referes to the noun (Bensu, heya, and tanjoubi), particle refers to o, wa, and wa, numeral adjective refers to kyuu, juuni, and ichi, and Cl refers to the classifier dai, kai, and gatsu.Some Japanese classifiers are written attached to their numerals, other ones can be written sepearately, while the others change their forms when used with their numeral, such as -nin.To state one person in Japanese, instead of saying ichi-nin the classifier fuses with its numeral into hitori, it also occurs in futari to state two people.-Nin is back into its original form as in san-in (three people).The same case occurs in -hon, -hiki, and -fun which change their forms into -pon, -piki, and -pun to say ippon, ippiki, and ippun.These classifiers are back into their original form as in juuni-hon, ni-hiki, and yon-fun.This kind of change, nevertheless, does not influence the meaning of the whole noun phrase.However, the omission of classifier brings change to the phrase since a numeral adjective only is unable to modify a noun, verb, or even adjective.Now let us have a look at other sentences, ni jikan go ni aimashou!and hitori (ichi-nin) wa kowai kara iyadayo! that do not have any noun phrase.Both of the sentences use classifiers and the numeral adjectives as to modify the verb aimashou and the adjective kowai.The classifiers' structure is presented as follows:

Numeral adjective + Cl
The numeral adjective refers to ni and ichi in hitori, whereas the Cl refers to jikan and -nin (the classifiers).Since classifiers also belong to noun, it does not always have to be followed by another noun.These constructions are interesting; the first one shows how the classifier is not followed by noun, yet the particle and verb are following after it.The second construction has a fusion type classifier since it fuses with the noun nin.As a result, hitori is used and is more natural than ichinin, same case is shown in futari which is taken from ni-nin, meaning two people.
Indonesian classifiers are more likely to show similar nature as Japanese when being used in phrase or construction in terms of structure, in which they have to occur together with the numeral classifiers.Corpus of Indonesian language have collected a number of possible constructions, and some of them are presented as follows: a. …padahal proyektil itu dari dua laras yang berbeda; b.Ismail tetap tidak punya apa-apa kecuali tiga kerat roti untuk istrinya yang masih lemah itu These constructions can be presented in the following structure: The numeral adjective refers to dua and tiga, the Cl refers to the determiners kerat and laras, while N 1 refers to roti and senjata which is omitted in the first construction.In the first construction, it is possible to omit the noun that should follow the classifier, the noun should be senjata, however, it has been mentioned previously, making the context clear.Furthermore, Indonesian classifier can show similar nature to those in Japanese in terms of fusion.When Japanese has the hitori and futari, Indonesian language has se-, meaning "one" to indicate something singular, for example satu orang becomes seorang, satu buah into sebuah, satu batang into sebatang, satu kerat into sekerat.This form, however, is considered more natural than saying satu batang.Fortunately, this change does not affect the meaning of the whole noun phrase.
Other characteristics of Indonesian classifiers and numerals adjectives are some numeral classifiers can be replaced with beberapa if the speakers are not sure or do not know about the amount of the thing.In addition to replacement of numeral, classifiers can also be omitted in a sentence to sound more casual.Thus, it is also permitted to say another form such as dua senjata where the classifier is omitted and only the numeral adjective and the noun are left.

Conclusion
Classifiers has been integral part of a language, yet each language has its respective way in treating and use classifiers.Japanese and Indonesian languages clearly depict the nature of classifiers through its constructions.Japanese language has 19 classifiers consisting of two absolutely must-know counters and seventeen must-know counters, whereas Indonesian language has twenty-two classifiers to use.Japanese is an obligatory classifiers language since a numeral adjective only cannot modify nouns, verbs, or even adjectives.In contrast with Indonesian language that treats classifiers as optional, thus it is natural to say a numeral adjective that is directly followed by a noun.In other words, semantically speaking, Indonesian and Japanese classifiers are different to the point that their presence affect the meaning of the whole phrase, even in Indonesian language, classifiers are often omitted to avoid formality.Nevertheless, a similar aspect exists where both Japanese and Indonesian languages allow fusion for the classifiers with the noun as in hitori (ichinin), ippiki (ichi-hiki), ippon (ichi-hon), and ippun (ichi-fun), sebatang rokok, sekuntum bunga, and sepiring nasi, yet the meaning remains the same.
Syntactically, there is no much difference of the structure formed by Japanese and Indonesian classifiers.Both languages' classifiers are written after numeral adjectives.However, Japanese allows the classifiers, together with numeral adjective forming a noun phrase, to precede particles (wo/ha/mo) and verbs or adjectives to modify them.

Table 1 . Japanese Classifiers and Their Function in Sentences As
This article will only discuss the first two categories since those are the most frequently used classifiers in Japanese, especially the absolutely must-know counters because it can cover the role of other classifiers.The rest categories are used, yet they are not very common and frequent.The absolutely must-know counters and the must-know counters along with their function and use are presented in the following Table.shown in the Table, each noun has their own classifier.The first two classifiers are the absolutely must-know classifiers which can count almost anything in general.The other seventeen classifiers are the most encountered and used classifier for specific nouns.If a speaker does not know what classifier to use for certain noun, -tsu and -ko can replace those seventeen classifiers.