[intertextuality]

Those aren't counters, they're measure words[0]. E.g. I saw two rolls of film or two films. sticks of dynamite, blades of grass, grains of sand. These function differently than counters in other languages.

Korean (and Chinese, I'm assuming) has actual counters/classifiers [1], that is, separate grammatical concepts. 저는 차 두 대를 봤어요 - Here, (대) is the counter for cars (차/차동차). I saw two [counter] cars. This concept doesn't exist in English, except for measure words which serve a different purpose.

For Korean there are around 30-35 or so [2] used in common speech I believe, with 개 being a general catch all for objects. Other examples include: One has to use 명 or 분 for people, and 달 or 개월 for months (duration).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_word

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classifier_(linguistics)

[2]: http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/Counting_items

[flomble]

Sure, but the classifiers are highly analogous to the English "counters". Conceptually, 三個人 ("three people") could be interpreted as "three individuals of person".

You could view Chinese nouns as all being mass nouns like English "sand". In the same way you can't say "one sand", but need to add a counter as in "one grain of sand", in Chinese you can't say "one book", you have to say "one volume of book" (一本書).

Sure, you can make distinctions between "classifiers" vs. "measure words" vs. units of measurement, but it feels like the same construct to say 一位人 ("one person"), 一群人 ("a group of people") or 一斤人 ("half a kilo of human"), as grisly as the last one may be.

[intertextuality]

The difference is in Korean or Chinese you need to do it with all nouns that you're counting, unlike English which only reserves it for measuring mass nouns or clarifying between nouns, etc. They way they function is also different, so I would treat them as separate grammatical concepts.

[thaumasiotes]

> The way they function is also different, so I would treat them as separate grammatical concepts.

That would be a good argument, except that the way they function isn't different.

[intertextuality]

The way they function is completely different.

English: measure certain mass nouns or classify certain nouns. Not used for counting every noun.

Korean: Always used, regardless if they measure or clarify. Six dogs, three months, two papers, four volumes, one bowl, ten things all use counters. Always.

The difference is night and day.

[thaumasiotes]

The fact that they are used for all nouns [1] in Chinese / Korean and only one of the two classes of nouns in English is not a difference in the way they are used or the function they perform. It is a difference in which nouns require their use. They have identical grammar and meaning. There is no reason to consider them distinct phenomena; they are one and the same.

[1] Certain things that you might think of as a noun based on English are, in Chinese, measure words which do not measure a noun. For example, 天 "day" and 次 "time" (as in "it happened three times") are syntactically measure words, but it is not possible to follow them with a noun that they notionally measure. This isn't really distinguishable from saying that all English count nouns are really measure words.

[chao-]

I agree that they are ultimately separate and differentiable in a grammatic sense. Mostly I was taking issue with the sentiment in the GP's summary: "Mandarin introduces new grammatical requirements that English ... [doesn't] even have constructs for, like ... counting words." rather than the linguistic specifics.

I firmly feel that, despite being distinct from measure words, they are close enough to English concepts that it isn't really hard to relate to and learn. Gendered inflections are far more inaccessible to me as a native English speaker than counters ever were!