A Comparative Study of Measure Words in Chinese and Akan

Abstract

Measure words, as a crucial lexical category for expressing quantity across languages, reveal the distinct cultural and structural features of Chinese and Akan. Although Akan does not have an independent class of measure words, it exhibits classifier-like phenomena. Grounded in language typology and contrastive analysis, this study employs questionnaires and corpus methods to systematically compare Chinese measure words and Akan classifier-like items, examining how their similarities and differences impact language learning and teaching. The findings show that the use of measure words in both languages is shaped not only by structural properties but also by socio-functional factors. Among Ghanaian learners, basic nominal measure words are relatively easy to acquire, whereas the acquisition of verbal measure words remains weaker and more prone to errors. The study further analyzes factors affecting acquisition and proposes targeted teaching strategies. This research provides new evidence for cross-linguistic studies of Chinese measure words and offers practical implications for teaching Chinese to African learners.