ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a novel dichotomous analysis for the syntax of Chinese classifiers and the corresponding [Num-Cl-N] construction. It is proposed that, while classifiers denoting standardized interval units correlate with an intransitive underlying structure in which the classifier takes no complement, those irrelevant to the standardized interval unit meaning are associated with a transitive configuration and require an NP complement. With regard to the [Num-Cl-N] containing an “intransitive” classifier, it is hypothesized that [Num-Cl] and the head noun are structurally connected via the functional head Mon in the sense of Schwarzschild (2006), which semantically represents measurement on a monotonic dimension.
This chapter will be devoted to the syntactic investigation of the numeral classifier construction [Num-Cl-N] in Chinese. In Section 3.1, a comprehensive review of previous syntactic analyses of [Num-Cl-N] will be provided. Section 3.2 will motivate a dichotomous treatment for Chinese classifiers, whereby two distinct underlying structures will be proposed for [Num-Cl-N]. A discussion of the consequences of the present syntactic proposal will be provided in Section 3.3. Section 3.4 is a summary of the entire chapter.
