Title

Yi-wan Tang, Yi-ge Tang: Classified and Massifiers

Author

Lisa L.S. Cheng, Rint Sybesma

Genre

Article  

Pages

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Language

Key words

Count-mass distinction, classifiers, noun phrase structure

Abstract

    In this paper, we investigate the grammar of constructions involving classifiers in Mandarin Chinese. We argue that there are two types of classifiers, count-classifiers and mass-classifiers (massifiers), both involving their own structure. They display different grammatical behavior, which can be explained in terms of their different grammatical structure. One of our conclusions is th at in Chinese, the difference between mass nouns and count nouns is grammatically reflected at the level of the classifiers (contrasting with Indo-European languages, where you find count-mass distinctions reflected at the level of the noun).