Entity classifiers (also known as semantic classifiers) express movement or location of entities in space. These constructions often substitute an element that has been previously introduced by a lexical sign.
ix3 car cl(z): ‘car parking’.
‘He parked the car.’
tree cl(g): ‘tree’+++.
‘There are many trees along the avenue.’
In LSC, the most frequently used entity classifiers handshapes are the following:
cl(B): ‘person’
cl(Y): ‘person standing’
cl(Y): ‘person on a bicycle’
cl(@): ‘person sitting’
cl(f): ‘very fat person’
cl(q): ‘animal’
cl(y): ‘statue / figure / dummy’
cl(6): ‘column’
cl(z): ‘car’
cl(i): ‘bicycle / motorbike’
cl(f): ‘plane’
cl(a): ‘train’
cl(<): ‘bus’
cl(,): ‘boat’ (1)
cl(,): ‘boat’ (2)
cl(,): ‘sailing boat’
cl(:): ‘zodiac launch’
cl(<): ‘carriage’
cl(,): ‘lorry'
cl(b): ‘tramway’
cl(<): ‘coach’
cl(b): ‘cable car’
cl(e): ‘trailer’
cl(e): ‘crane’
cl(<): ‘caravan’
cl(i): ‘tree’
cl(i): ‘plant’
cl(f): ‘telephone’
cl(|): ‘paper’
cl(z): ‘book’
cl(|): ‘book’
cl(s): ‘cutlery’
cl(=): ‘spoon’
cl(s): ‘knife’
cl(l): ‘fork’
cl(l): ‘plate’
cl(i): ‘bird’
cl(9): ‘big bird’
(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)
The richness of use of entity classifiers can be appreciated with a particular case: water. In the following examples water is represented in many different ways, thanks to a variety of entity classifiers.
cl(>): ‘large river’
cl(>): ‘tide’
cl(5): ‘geyser’
cl(d): ‘fountain’
cl()): ‘sprinkler’
cl(B): ‘water pump’
cl(>): ‘water breaking on rocks’
cl(B): ‘sweat beads’
cl(?): ‘shower’
cl((): ‘giant wave’
cl(?): ‘water from a tap’
cl(>): ‘waterfall’
(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)