A Study Of Reduplicated Verbs Connecting With Numeral Classifier Compounds In The Ningbo Dialect

On the basis of former research on overlapping verbs, this paper probes into reduplicated verbs which connect with numeral-classifier compounds in the Ningbo dialect, we all know reduplicated verbs cannot co-occur with numeral-classifier compounds in modern Chinese, but in the Ningbo dialect it can. Furthermore some of verbs must co-occur with numeral-classifier compounds, which always appear in following three types of sentences: I. "reduplicated verbs + (you) + numeral-classifier compounds"; II. "reduplicated verbs + outcome complement + (you) + numeral-classifier compounds" and III. "reduplicated verbs + direction complement + (you) + numeral-classifier compounds". The expressive functions of the sentences are "evaluation". Based on different numeral-classifier compounds, sentences are separated into nine types. Then we discussed the basic meanings of the nine sentences and the rang of reduplicated verbs. At the end of the paper we concluded the grammatical meaning of reduplicated verbs in the Ningbo dialect.