Lexicalization of mensural classifiers in Chinese

This article delineates the internal structure of mensural classifiers in Mandarin Chinese by arguing that each mensural classifier in Mandarin Chinese contains a silent semantic primitive SCALE, which can be modified by a restricted set of gradable adjectives. Viewing this silent scalar element as a grammatical object explains away a set of puzzles in Chinese linguistics, including the restricted use of adjectives before mensural classifiers, the seemingly free distributional patterns of verbal measure phrases, and the number indeterminacy in the verb reduplication construction.