Numeral Classifiers in Chinese: The Syntax-Semantics Interface

Description

This book studies the syntax and semantics of numeral classifiers in Mandarin and other Chinese languages. It explores how Chinese classifiers are semantically interpreted in syntactic contexts and how semantic functions of classifiers are realized at the syntactic level. The book is a contribution to formal Chinese linguistics, and to the understanding of grammatical properties of nominal phrases in Chinese and East Asian languages. Preface Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Issues 1.1. Issue 1: the debate on a count/mass distinction in Mandarin 1.2. Issue 2: counting and measuring functions of classifiers 1.3. Issue 3: definiteness in classifier languages 2. Data and source 3. Structure of the book Part I: The debate on a count/mass distinction in Chinese Chapter 2: Defing classifiers 1. Chinese classifiers: an illustration 1.1. Identifying classifiers syntactically 1.2. Chinese classifiers: a heuristic classification 2. Classifiers as a closed class 3. Classifiers without “descriptive content” 3.1. Classifiers are not nominal 3.2. Classifiers have no ‘descriptive content’ 4. Classifiers are complement-taking 5. Classifiers as stressless 6. Classifiers in English: a contrastive look 7. Conclusions Chapter 3: The count/mass distinction in Chinese revisited 1. Introduction 2. Syntactic distinction between count and mass classifiers 2.1. Introduction to count/mass classifiers 2.2. Lexical/functional distinction of classifiers 2.3. Two syntactic diagnostics 3. Possibility of pre-classifier adjectival modification 3.1. Adjectives before count and mass classifiers 3.2. Two constraints on pre-classifier adjectives 4. Optionality of post-classifier de 5. Conclusions Chapter 4: Natural atomicity 1. Introduction 2. Countability and individuation 3. A lexical distinction between mass and count nouns 4. Individual, stuff and partial-object readings 5. Natural atomicity as a grammatically relevant phenomenon 6. Conclusions Chapter 5: Chinese bare nouns 1. Introduction 2. The Krifka-Chierchia hypothesis 3. Bare nouns as kinds 3.1. Strong kind-inducing contexts 3.2. Appositives 3.3. Scope with respect to opacity 3.4. Scope with respect to quantifiers 4. Semantics of bare nouns 5. Bare predication 5.1. Some analyses of copula clauses 5.1.1. Ambiguous BEs 5.1.2. Unambiguous BE 5.2. Post-copula bare nouns as predicates of individuals 5.3. Post-copula bare nouns as predicates of subkinds 5.4. Post-copula bare nouns as predicates of kinds 6. Definite bare nouns 6.1. Topic-hood and definiteness 6.2. Definite bare nouns in object positions 6.3. Semantics of definite bare nouns Part II: Functions of classifiers: counting and measuring Chapter 6: Counting and measure functions of classifiers 1. Introduction 2. Counting and measuring readings: a crosslinguistic perspective 2.1. Introducing counting and measuring readings 2.2. Structures for counting and measuring readings 3. Ambiguity of container classifiers in Chinese 3.1. Counting and measuring readings for Chinese container classifiers 3.2. The syntax of counting and measuring readings 4. A feature analysis of classifiers: [±Counting, ±Measuring] 4.1. Four types of classifiers 4.1.1. Type 1: [+C, -M] classifiers 4.1.2. Type 2: [-C, +M] classifiers 4.1.3. Type 3: [+C, +M] classifiers 4.1.4. Type 4: [-C, -M] classifiers 4.1.5. Concluding remarks 4.2. Syntactic support for the counting and measuring readings 4.3. Semantic shifting between counting and measuring readings 5. Semantics of classifiers: counting and measuring 5.1. Krifka’s (1995) semantics for Chinese classifiers 5.2. Rothstein’s (2010) semantics for English classifiers 5.3. Semantics of Chinese classifiers 5.3.1. Semantics of classifiers in counting readings 5.3.2. Semantics for classifiers on the measure reading 6. Conclusions Chapter 7: Adjectival modification in classifier phrases: pre-classifier adjectives 1. Introduction 2. Licensing pre-classifier adjectives 2.1. Pre-classifier adjectives before counting classifiers 2.2. “Concrete portion” reading (Partee and Borschev 2012) 3. The modification relation of pre-classifier adjectives 3.1. Adjectival modification in pseudo-partitives 3.2. Pre-classifier adjectives in Mandarin 3.2.1. Rejecting pre-classifier adjectives modifying mass classifiers 3.2.2. Rejecting pre-classifier adjectives modifying nouns 4. Pre-classifier adjectives modifying “Cl+N” 4.1. Contexts of using pre-classifier adjectives 4.1.1. Consumption contexts 4.1.2. Contexts of significance 4.1.3. Contrastive contexts 4.2. Syntactic structure 5. Semantics of pre-classifier adjectives 5.1. Introduction to ‘expressives’ 5.2. Pre-classifier adjectives as expressives 5.3. Pre-classifier adjectives and plurality 6. Conclusions Chapter 8: Modification marker de in classifier phrases 1. Introduction 2. Licensing the post-classifier de 2.1. De with mass classifiers (Cheng and Sybesma 1998) 2.2. “Information weight” (Tang 2005) 2.3. The ‘indeterminacy’ account (Hsieh 2008) 3. Unsolved problems (Li and Rothstein 2012) 4. Semantics of Num-measure Cl-de-N: as much as 4.1. Measure classifiers and the particle de 4.2. Semantics of Num-Clmeasure-de-N 5. Num-count Cl-de-N: as many as 5.1. Counting classifiers in measure phrases 5.2. Semantics of Num-Clcount-de-N 6. Conclusions: two puzzles about [+counting] classifiers Part III: Definiteness in classifier languages Chapter 9: Definite classifiers in southern Chinese languages 1. Introduction 2. “Cl+N” in three Chinese languages 2.1. “Cl+N” in Mandarin 2.2. “Cl+N” in Wu 2.2.1. Preverbal “Cl+N” 2.2.2. Postverbal Cl+N 2.3. “Cl+N” in Cantonese 3. Information structure and (in)definite “Cl+N” 4. Syntax of indefinite “Cl+N” 4.1. Indefinite “Cl+N” as a reduced form of “one+Cl+N” (Lü 1944) .. 4.2. Indefinite “Cl+N” as NumPs 4.3. Indefinite “Cl+N” as ClP 5. Syntax of definite “Cl+N” 5.1. From “Dem+Cl+N” to definite “Cl+N” 5.2. Definite “Cl+N” as ClP 5.3. Definite “Cl+N” as DP 6. Semantic interpretation of “Cl+N” 6.1. “Cl+N” with a counting reading 6.2. Semantics of indefinite “Cl+N” 6.3. Semantics of definite “Cl+N”: from counting to definitenessmarking 6.3.1. A uniqueness-based approach of definiteness 6.3.2. A familiarity-based approach of definiteness 6.3.3. Semantics of definite “Cl+N” 7. Summary Chapter 10: Definite classifiers and their modifiers 1. Introduction to modified “Cl+N” 2. Syntax of modified “Cl+N” in Wu 2.1. Modified “Cl+N” as a definite expression 2.2. Modified “Cl+N” as DP 2.2.1. Definite classifiers as D head 2.2.2. Dems as [Spec DP] 2.2.3. Adjs/RCs as [Spec DP] 3. Semantics of non-bare “Cl+N” 3.1. Definite classifiers characterized with “familiarity” 3.2. Interpret modified “Cl-N” compositionally 4. Concluding remarks References Index