漢語名詞的性質和數量詞使用的關係

The Feature of Chinese Nouns Relating to Uses of Numeral Classifiers

有些先行研究認為光杆漢語名詞不是表示個體而是表示類別（或屬性）的，所以在表示個體事物時，需要數量詞來限定。有些則認為因為漢語光杆名詞是表示複數的，在表示單數個體事物時需用學數數量詞。本文認為漢語名詞的性質並不如先行研究所說的那樣，而是既能表示類別（或屬性）、也能表示單數或複數的個體事物。數量詞的使用可以用漢語名詞的這種性質來解釋。

Some previous studies propose that Chinese bare nouns only refer to categories (or attributes) of objects and not to the individual objects. Some also state that Chinese bare nouns usually refer to plural entities. They propose that some uses of Chinese numeral classifiers (NCLs) result from the features of Chinese nouns. In this study, we argue that the uses of NCLs are related to the features of Chinese nouns, and this is different from what previous studies have proposed. We suggest that Chinese bare nouns can express three possibilities: categories (or attributes), singular individual objects, and plural objects.