FUNCTIONS AND PROPERTIES OF THE CLASSIFIER
The function of the classifier is to sub-classify the noun referent; for instance, dental treatment is a sub-classification of medical treatment, dental contrasting with other sub domains of medicine. Although certain words can function as both descriptors and classifiers, these functions can normally be distinguished by the following criteria:
(a) Classifiers are not gradable, as descriptive adjectives are; that is, they don’t admit degrees of comparison or intensity; we can’t say *more dental treatment’, *very dental treatment, as we can with descriptors: more effective treatment, very effective treatment.
(b) Classifiers tend to be organized into mutually exclusive sets, as in presidential election, the presidential airplane (AmE), which contrast with other elections and air planes (BrE aircraft) not relative to a president or a presidency. Another set in a different domain, that of ways of cooking eggs, includes fried, boiled, poached, scrambled [eggs].
(c) The classifier function is realized by adjectives, nouns, participles, ordinal numbers and, to a lesser extent, adverbs, phrases and clauses. These will be briefly treated in turn.
