Classifier Structures in Mandarin Chinese

This monograph addresses fundamental syntactic issues of classifier constructions, based on a thorough study of a typical classifier language, Mandarin Chinese. It shows that the contrast between count and mass is not binary. Instead, there are two independently attested features: Numerability, the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author Zhang, Niina Ning
Format eBook
LanguageEnglish
Published Germany De Gruyter 2013
De Gruyter, Inc
De Gruyter Mouton
Edition1
SeriesTrends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]
Subjects
Chinese language
English
Language
LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES
Mandarin dialects
Simplified characters
Textbooks for foreign speakers
Online AccessGet full text

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Table of Contents:
  • 3.5.1. G-YI: Yi as a generic quantifier -- 3.5.2. E-YI: Yi as an existential quantifier -- 3.5.3. M-YI: Yi as a maximal quantifier -- 3.6. Chapter summary -- Chapter 4: Classifiers and plurality -- 4.1. Introduction -- 4.1.1. Number in Mandarin Chinese? -- 4.1.2. General number and optional number marking -- 4.1.3. Abundant plural -- 4.2. Unit plurality -- 4.2.1. RUWs as unit-plurality markers -- 4.2.2. The productivity -- 4.2.3. RUWs, E-YI, and distributivity -- 4.2.4. Definiteness and specificity of RUW nominals -- 4.2.5. The interactions of numerals and number markers -- 4.3. Unit singularity -- 4.3.1. SUWs as unit-singularity markers -- 4.3.2. The productivity -- 4.3.3. The problems of the numeral-deletion analysis -- 4.3.4. Definiteness and specificity of SUW nominals -- 4.4. Morphological and semantic markedness -- 4.5. Number marking in CL languages -- 4.6. Chapter summary -- Chapter 5: The syntactic constituency of numeral expressions -- 5.1. Introduction -- 5.2. Four arguments for the non-unified analysis -- 5.2.1. The scope of a left-peripheral modifier -- 5.2.2. The effect of modifier-association -- 5.2.3. Semantic selection -- 5.2.4. The order of size and shape modifiers -- 5.2.5. Two possible structures -- 5.3. Invalid arguments -- 5.3.1. The adjacency of a numeral and a unit word -- 5.3.2. Syntactic operations on NPs -- 5.3.3. NP ellipsis -- 5.3.4. The positions of the partitives duo 'more' and ban 'half' -- 5.3.5. Other invalid arguments -- 5.4. Constituency and the readings of numeral expressions -- 5.4.1. Count and measure -- 5.4.2. Individual and quantity -- 5.4.3. Definiteness and specificity -- 5.5. Constituency and the occurrence of de following a unit word -- 5.5.1. Background -- 5.5.2. The quantity-reading condition -- 5.5.3. Different sources of de -- 5.6. Chapter summary -- Chapter 6: The syntactic positions of classifiers
  • Intro -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Classifiers and countability -- 2.1. Introduction -- 2.2. Decomposing countability -- 2.2.1. Identifying two new features syntagmatically -- 2.2.2. Defining count and mass by the two features -- 2.2.3. Attesting the two features in co-occurrence restrictions -- 2.2.4. Attesting the two features in pronominalization -- 2.2.5. Attesting the two features in shifts -- 2.2.6. Numerability and number -- 2.3. The two features in nouns -- 2.3.1. Numerability of nouns -- 2.3.2. Delimitability of nouns -- 2.4. The two features in unit words -- 2.4.1. CLs and measure words -- 2.4.2. Unit words that occur with [-Delimitable] -- 2.4.3. Unit words that occur with [+Delimitable] -- 2.4.4. Unit words that occur with [±Delimitable] -- 2.4.5. The CL ge -- 2.4.6. Unit words as unique Numerability bearers in Chinese -- 2.4.7. Delimitability of unit words -- 2.5. Reflections on the studies of countability -- 2.5.1. What's new? -- 2.5.2. The semantic approach to countability -- 2.5.3. The morphological approach to countability -- 2.5.4. The multi-criteria approach to countability -- 2.5.5. Other non-binary analyses of countability -- 2.5.6. Experimental perspective -- 2.6. Reflections on the studies of CLs in numeral expressions -- 2.6.1. The syntactic foundations of the presence of CLs -- 2.6.2. How special are the CLs of CL languages? -- 2.6.3. The sortal-mensural contrast and CLs that do not classify -- 2.6.4. The unreliability of the de and pre-CL adjective arguments -- 2.6.5. Experimental perspective -- 2.7. Chapter summary -- Chapter 3: Classifiers and quantifiers -- 3.1. Introduction -- 3.2. Quantifiers that occur with a unit word -- 3.3. Quantifiers that occur without a unit word -- 3.4. The ambiguous cases -- 3.5. Non-numeral uses of yi 'one' in nominals
  • 6.1. Introduction -- 6.2. The projection of UnitP -- 6.2.1. Unit words in numeral expressions and the head of UnitP -- 6.2.2. The Spec-Head relation of a numeral and a unit word -- 6.2.3. The surface position of numerals and QuantP -- 6.3. The co-occurrence of QuantP, UnitP, and NumP -- 6.4. The morphosyntactic properties of pre-unit-word adjectives -- 6.5. The right- and left-branching numeral constructions -- 6.5.1. The representations of the right-branching structure -- 6.5.2. The representation of the left-branching structure -- 6.5.3. MonP and de -- 6.6. The structure of attributive numeral expressions -- 6.7. Various realizations of the head of UnitP -- 6.7.1. Major typological patterns of the null Unit -- 6.7.2. A comparison with numeral-oriented approaches -- 6.8. Chapter summary -- Chapter 7: Noun-classifier compounds -- 7.1. Introduction -- 7.2. Basic properties of N-CL compounds -- 7.2.1. The components of N-CL compounds -- 7.2.2. The distributions and readings of N-CL compounds -- 7.3. DelP and N-CL compounds -- 7.3.1. Compound-internal CL as a realization of Del -- 7.3.2. DelP and delimitable markers -- 7.4. The non-count status of N-CL compounds -- 7.5. The relations between the higher and the lower CLs -- 7.5.1. No multiple individuating -- 7.5.2. No multiple counting-units -- 7.5.3. The semantic interactions between the two CLs -- 7.6. The place-holder CLs -- 7.6.1. Ge as the higher CL -- 7.6.2. The CL copying constructions -- 7.6.3. The alternation possibility -- 7.6.4. The significance of place-holder CLs -- 7.7. The syntactic representations of N-CL numeral expressions -- 7.7.1. The constructions without a place-holder CL -- 7.7.2. The constructions with a place-holder CL -- 7.8. Chapter summary -- Chapter 8: Conclusions -- References -- Subject index -- Language index