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Beyond one, two, three: Number matters in classifier languages
Author(s)
Date Issued
2020
Publisher
Berlin: Language Science Press
Citation
In Bárány, A., Biberauer, T., Douglas, J., & Vikner, S. (eds.), 2020. Syntactic architecture and its consequences I: Syntax inside the grammar, (pp. 511–525). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Type
Book Chapter
Abstract
Chinese has been widely recognised as a classic example of a numeral-licensing
classifier language, where the presence of a classifier is obligatory for overt quantification of nouns. This paper presents new data from Mandarin and Hong Kong
Cantonese (HKC) to show that the need of classifiers for quantification is not always that absolute. Systematic variation has been found with an extended range of
numerals examined (numerals larger than three), and a wider coverage of nouns in
terms of animacy. The findings present a consistent pattern that HKC has a stricter
requirement for classifiers in enumeration as bare common nouns are not definite
in HKC, and it lacks the alternative strategies found in Mandarin.
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