Mass/count Distinction In Mandarin Chinese

Mass nouns and count nouns are often discussed in plural-marking languages. In a classifier language like Mandarin Chinese, it is rarely discussed because Chinese do not belong to plural-marking languages. Yuanren Chao and Dexi Zhu do classify nouns in their works into count nouns and mass nouns. Later not much attention was put on the topic. The thesis will study mass/count issue in the framework of formal semantics. The reason of studying the topic in the framework of formal semantics instead of others(traditional descriptive approach, cognitive approach etc.) is that(1) formal semantics have abundant theoretical frameworks on this topic which can make the study convenient;(2)the countability of nouns is overt under the framework of formal semantics.The thesis proposes that there is mass/count distinction in Mandarin Chinese.There are two theories under formal semantics on mass/count distinction and they are going to be tested to decide which one can explain language data in Chinese better. The first is atomicity-based theory represented by Link. This theory assumes that mass/count distinction lies in atomicity. Count nouns are in the atomic set while mass nouns are in the non-atomic set. The second theory is number-based theory represented by Chierchia. This theory assumes that mass/count distinction lies in number and mass nouns have built-in plurality.The thesis reaches the conclusion that the atomicity-based theory better explains nouns of Mandarin Chinese and there is mass/count distinction in Mandarin Chinese. The thesis also classifies nouns of Mandarin Chinese into three kinds: count nouns, mass nouns, flexible nouns and group nouns.