ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a new, three-way subcategorization of [Measurement Phrase(MP)-de(的)-N], classifying it into modifying, quantifying, and abstract types. Syntactically, the underlying structure of the modifying-type [MP-de(的)-N] is identical to that of ordinary Chinese de(的)-marked modification constructions, with de (的) being a modification marker; the quantifying-type [MP-de(的)-N] correlates with a DP-internal FocP, with de (的) being a linguistic means of marking the focus status of the MP explicitly. The abstract-type [MP-de(的)-N] is derived via the DP-internal Predicate Inversion, during which process de (的) pops up to satisfy a general well-formedness requirement for Predicate Inversion.
This chapter will be devoted to the measurement construction [Num-Cl-de(的)-N] in Chinese. This construction is composed of a measurement classifier, a type of classifier that provides a conventionally recognized, standard unit for measurement along certain dimensions (for example, length, volume, weight, or temperature), such as mǐ (米) ‘meter,’ bàng (磅) ‘pound,’ shēng (升) ‘liter,’ shèshìdù (摄氏度) ‘degree Celsius,’ and so on. For expository simplicity, the measurement phrase [Num-Measurement Classifier] will be abbreviated as MP henceforth. This chapter will review previous observations concerning the [MP-de(的)-N] construction in Section 4.1 and the existing approaches to this construction in Section 4.2. Section 4.3 will present empirical evidence to motivate a new three-way subcategorization of [MP-de(的)-N]. Based on this, Section 4.4 will attempt a trichotomous analysis of the generation of [MP-de(的)-N] and the linking element de (的). Section 4.5 concludes this chapter with a summary.
