This paper proposes an analysis of classifiers into four major types: UNIT, METRIC, GROUP and SPECIES, based on properties of both Japanese and English. The analysis makes possible a uniform and straightforward treatment of noun phrases headed by classifiers in Japanese-to-English machine translation, and has been implemented in the MT system ALT-J/E. Although the analysis is based on the characteristics of, and differences between, Japanese and English, it is shown to be also applicable to the unrelated language Thai.
@article{arxiv.cmp-lg/9608014,
title = {Classifiers in Japanese-to-English Machine Translation},
author = {Francis Bond and Kentaro Ogura and Satoru Ikehara},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cmp-lg/9608014},
year = {2008}
}