PROCESS-RELATED DURATIVE PHRASES AS NUMERAL-CLASSIFIER PHRASES IN CHINESE
Wei-wen Roger Liao
This paper argues that pre-nominal durative phrases should be analyzed as numeral-classifiers in Chinese. New evidence is provided from Taiwanese tone sandhi rules and the de-insertion rule in Mandarin. It is shown that the numeral-classifier analysis of the pre-nominal durative phrase is able to solve the tension among previous analyses, and may provide a unified account for the syntax-semantic mismatch of the durative phrase.
Keywords: Chinese syntax, durative phrases, syntax-semantic mismatch, Taiwanese tone sandhi
