A Study Of Classifier Reduplication And Yi-Classifier Reduplication In Mandarin Chinese

Classifier reduplication is a unique linguistic phenomenon in the Sino-Tibetan languages.The study of classifier reduplication has always been an important topic in the field of linguistics.Linguists have made extensive researches on the types,syntactic constituents and grammatical meanings of reduplicative classifiers.It is believed that classifier reduplication has a variety of grammatical meanings,including ‘every',‘many' and ‘one by one'.While,the author finds that both classifier reduplication CC and yi CC forms can express the meanig of ‘many' and sometimes even can be replaced with each other.Maybe for this reason,many papers just analyze the syntactic and semantic properties on the whole.For the relationship between CC and yi CC,most scholars hold that the yi CC structure is based on reduplicative form CC with a numeral yi(one).Therefore,in response to the above phenomena,this paper mainly investigates classifier reduplication and yi-classifier reduplication in Mandarin Chinese based on previous studies,we raise the following two questions:1)What are the similarities and differences between CC and yi CC structures?2)What is the role of yi in yi-classifier reduplication? Why are some classifiers that cannot be applied into CC structure suitable to the yi CC structure?Having compared two forms of classifier reduplication,this paper makes the following analysis.First,although both CC and yi CC express the meaning of ‘many',they are diffiferent at the aspects of the tolerance in the exceptions,semantic focus,and the dynamic or static feature.Second,yi in yi CC cannot be considered as a real numeral,but may be combined with reduplicative classifier to constitute weak quantifier,similar to ‘many' in English.This paper analyzes two forms of classifier reduplication based on the distinction between the strong and weak quantifiers in English by Milsark(1974)and Barwise & Cooper(1981).The wirter holds that the relationship between CC and yi CC also belongs to that of strong and weak quantifier.In addition,this paper believes that the existence of yi in yi CC creates a larger set to allow some classifiers which cannot be used into CC structure to be applied to the yi CC structure.The thesis is of significance in the following aspects.First of all,the new distinctions between CC and yi CC structures proposed in the paper can better explain the semantic properties of classifier reduplication.In addition,it provides a new hypothesis for the controversy over the researches on yi and classifier reduplication.It denies the conventionally adopted analysis in which yi in yi CC is a numeral.Furthermore,the analysis of classifier reduplication and yi-classifier reduplication enhances the understanding of classifier reduplication in Mandarin Chinese.