Amount classifiers in Chinese and the mass/count distinction

In Chinese, temporary classifiers form together with classifiers like piàn ‘piece’, tuán ‘something ball-shaped’, gǔ ‘stream or stand’ and pài ‘faction or clique’ a type of classifiers that has both mass and count forms. When occurring with the determinative quantifier yī to create a structure conve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 2015-01, Vol.2 (1), p.1-32
Main Author: Liu, Chen-Sheng Luther
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chinese languages
Classifiers
Count/Mass distinction
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Summary:In Chinese, temporary classifiers form together with classifiers like piàn ‘piece’, tuán ‘something ball-shaped’, gǔ ‘stream or stand’ and pài ‘faction or clique’ a type of classifiers that has both mass and count forms. When occurring with the determinative quantifier yī to create a structure conveying the part-related reading, they appear in the ‘mass form’ (i.e., amount classifiers), but the ‘count form’ (i.e., number classifiers) when occurring with a genuine numeral. That is, the nominal mass/count distinction in Chinese is reflected at the classifier level as the distinction between the amount classifier and the number classifier. Moreover, this distinction is grammatical not ontological.
ISSN:2213-8706
2213-8714
DOI:10.1075/ijchl.2.1.01liu