“的”與量詞功能的多樣性

Discussion note De and the Functional Expansion of Classifiers

華語名詞性短語中的功能詞“的＂是否等同於數量結構中的量詞？針對這一問題，這篇筆記整理了兩者在結構特點上的差異，包括“的＂不後附於數詞、不出現在名詞性成分的左緣、不緊跟在指示詞後面，而量詞則都可以；而且“的＂無重疊式，但量詞有。另外，“的＂可緊跟在形容詞、子句、人稱代詞，以及專有名詞之後，但量詞則不可。此外，量詞跟“的＂也可一前一後緊相隨，這更說明兩者句法地位不同。

This note tries to clarify an empirical issue: whether the association marker de in Mandarin Chinese is a numeral classifier. There are important syntactic contrasts between de and numeral classifiers. The former may not follow a numeral, occur at the left-edge of a nominal, follow a demonstrative immediately, be reduplicated, but a numeral classifier may do all of these. Moreover, de may follow an adjective, a clause, a pronoun, or a proper name, but a numeral classifier never does so. Furthermore, de and a numeral classifier can surface next to each other, indicating their different syntactic positions. We conclude that the two kinds of formatives are syntactically different.