The Overt Realization Of The Number Feature In Common NPs

This thesis mainly deals with the relationship between the classifier and -men in common NPs.In terms of the relationship,we neither agree with Wen and Chen's (2002)model,nor agree with Li's(1999)proposal.Adopting a DP-NumP-NP Model without CLP layer,we claim that the classifier and -men can't occur together,both of them base-generated in Num,the head position of NumP.Number features[+Sg]and [+Pl]are assigned to the classifier and -men respectively.The incompatibility between these two features leads to the non-occurrence of these two elements.In[Numeral-Classifier-NP]expressions,the classifier is base-generated in Num and the numeral is situated in the specifier of NumP.As DP is considered a functional category parallel to CP,its head feature of[+definite]can be[±Strong].In Mandarin Chinese,this feature is weak,and therefore it can't attract the movement of classifier, which is in contrast to Cantonese.The derivation of[Numeral-Classifier-NP] expressions in Mandarin is formed as follows: [_DP[Spec_D'[0[_NumP[Numeral_Num'[Classifier[NP]]]]]]].-Men is also generated in Num,but later it moves to D position together with NP, yielding a[+definite]interpretation.Its derivation can be represented as follows: [_DP[_D[N_i-men]_j[_NumP[_Numt_j[_NP[_Nt_i]]]]]]Inspired by Au Yeung(2005),the author demonstrates the close relationship between classifiers and specific numerals.The addition of n classifiers equals n by the classifier.That is:Classifier+Classifier+Classifier+..._n=n×Classifier. Whatever type the classifier belongs to,it can be considered a unit in a relative sense and possesses a tight correlation with a specific numeral.Three pieces of evidence from the grammatical categories,interpretations and grammaticalization are given out to show that -men and classifiers are distributed complementarily in the same syntactic position.