Marking (In)definiteness in Classifier Languages

Abstract

Nouns in Chinese-type languages behave differently in several salient ways from those in Germanic and Romance languages. To name a few: Chinese-type nouns do not have obligatory plural markers (- s / es ) or articles ( a / an / the ), but they do have a unique, systematic inventory of classifiers, or words that obligatorily appear with nouns and numbers. Though Chinese-type languages have a great deal in common with one another in the nominal domain, we observe that these languages vary dramatically with respect to how definiteness and indefiniteness are encoded. This paper explores these differences and proposes a modified model of NP s based on Krifka (1995) and Chierchia (1998) to accommodate data from both Chinese-type languages and languages with obligatory plural marking. (This article is in English.) 提要 以漢語為代表的語言與日耳曼、羅曼語族的語言相比有許多顯著的不同。例如，漢語類語言的名詞不用帶複數標記，沒有冠詞，但是這類語言有著一系列的量詞。這些量詞在名詞和數詞結合的時候，必須出現。雖然漢語類量詞語言的名詞結構在很大程度上很相似，它們在表達定指與不定指時呈現出相當大的差異。本文研究這些差異，並在Krifka (1995) 和Chierchia (1998)基礎上提出一個對名詞的分析，這個分析能對漢語類語言也能對其他例如必須帶複數標記的語言進行分析。