English

Fossil classifiers in Chinese chengyu and proverbs

Chengyu and proverbs, being archaisms from the days of Classical Chinese, have preserved numerous traits from that period in Chinese history that cannot be replicated in modern Chinese varieties. This paper squarely focuses on the cases of 一介书生 yījièshūshēng, 一抔黄土 yīpóuhuángtǔ, and 一言既出，驷马难追 yī yán jìchū, sìmǎ nán zhuī, and how their respective classifiers: 介 jiè, 抔 póu, and 驷 sì, are all examples of lexical fossils when used as classifiers in these phrases. It further proposes evaluating the definition of lexical fossils within a Sinological context.

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