James Summers’ research on Chinese classifiers — a discussion on “inheritance” in Western Chinese studies

Abstract

In tracing the train of inheritance of certain ideas in the history of research on the Chinese language conducted by Western sinologists, the sinologist’s direct statements, and the contemporary witness’ statements should be both taken into consideration, together with other types of evidence. James Summers (1828—1891) was the first British professor who conducted systematic research on the Chinese language. This paper analyses Summers’ study on a particular part of speech in Chinese—classifiers, including his discussions on the terminology and the function of classifiers, the relationship between classifiers and nouns and numerals, and pedagogy. It further takes the aforementioned method as the point of departure to trace the source of Summers’ ideas and examine whether later scholars have recognized his research on classifiers, i.e., the inheritance of Summers’ ideas.