ABSTRACT

There are two different word orders when a verb is followed by a verbal classifier and a noun, namely, V+verbal classifier+N and V+N+verbal classifier, as in “进一趟城” (jìn yī tàng chéng, literally ‘go once downtown’) and “进城一趟” (jìn chéng yī tàng, literally ‘go downtown once’). In what follows, VMN and VNM will be used to represent the two word orders.