Structure of Classifiers and Measure Words: A Lexical Functional Account

Previous accounts of the distribution of classifiers (C) and measure words (M) in Chinese [Num C/M N] include a uniform left-branching, right-branching, or split structure. This paper demonstrates that the left-branching structure best captures C/M’s common properties─among others, they are unified mathematically as the multiplicand (1 and ¬1 respectively) ─ and also offers the simplest account of word order typology. By contrast, the right-branching and the split account both over-generate and under-generate. A formal account is offered within Lexical Functional Grammar. C/M share the same left-branching (constituent) c-structure but differ in (functional) f-structure, where C serves as a co-head of N, but M heads the QUANTIFIER function. The f-structure proposed reflects the insight that cognitively C, not M, serves to profile an essential feature of N, in the sense of Fillmore (1982), and also captures the selectional restrictions between C and N.