ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a unified account of the grammatical function performed by Chinese classifiers in numerical quantification. It is proposed that Chinese classifiers uniformly denote partition units and serve to provide certain criteria for determining non-overlapping, itemized instantiations of the associated noun denotation to facilitate numerical counting. Furthermore, an interval-unit vs. atomic-unit dichotomy to characterize the different types of denotation associated with Chinese classifiers is proposed. It will be revealed that the core semantic factor affecting the syntactic behaviors of Chinese classifiers is the availability of a standardized interval-unit interpretation of classifiers.
