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Classifiers of Mandarin Alphabetical Words with Character-Alphabet Structure

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Chinese Lexical Semantics (CLSW 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 14514))

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Abstract

Mandarin alphabetical words (MAWs) refer to the code-mixing of Romanized letters and characters such as X光 ‘X-ray’ in the Mandarin lexicon. Previous studies have mainly focused on MAWs’ formation but lacked empirical evidence regarding their morpho-syntactic behaviours. Classifiers have been used to infer nominals’ semantic properties and characteristics. An intriguing yet less explored issue is the classifier-selection pattern of MAWs and MAWs’ morpho-syntactic idiosyncrasies. We adopt a corpus-based approach to handle this issue. Assuming that a MAW’s classifier is motivated by the head of that MAW, we hypothesize that when a MAW is integrated into the Mandarin lexicon, its dominant classifiers will be the semantically more specific ones and not the neutral classifier. We show that MAWs share a dominant compounding structure in Mandarin and that MAW's classifier is decided by that head even when the head is represented by alphabets.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Like many languages, Chinese compound nouns or nominal phrases often have the “modifier-head” structure; for example, 火车站 ‘train station’ has the modifier 火车 ‘train’ modifying the head 站 ‘stop, station’, and the syntactic status of the word is classified by the head 站 ‘stop, station’ instead of by the modifier 火车 ‘train’.

  2. 2.

    Event nouns are a subtype of nouns that lexically encode process readings [19]. For example, 真人CS ‘cosplay of counter strike’.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Xinlan Zhao, Yu-Yin Hsu & Chu-Ren Huang

Authors
  1. Xinlan Zhao
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  2. Yu-Yin Hsu
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  3. Chu-Ren Huang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xinlan Zhao .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore, Singapore

    Minghui Dong

  2. National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Jia-Fei Hong

  3. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Jingxia Lin

  4. Leshan Normal University, Leshan, China

    Peng Jin

Appendix

Appendix

CL

Category

Interpretation/

translation

CL

Category

Interpretation/

translation

个

General

A general individual classifier

群

individual

to classify a swarm of people or animals

位

individual

to classify people with politeness

帮

individual

to classify a group of people

批

individual

to classify a group of objects or people

名

individual

to classify different identities of people

枚

individual

to classify circular objects

粒

individual

to classify small granular objects

颗

individual

to classify granular objects

片

individual

to classify flake-shaped objects

项

individual

to classify distributed items in group

份

individual

to classify distributed items in group

支

individual

to classify long rod-shaped objects, also groups or teams

串

individual

to classify items in clusters

排

individual

to classify entities in the form of rows

条

individual

to classify long thin and soft objects

代

individual

to classify objects of a certain generation

层

individual

to classify layers of substance

版

individual

to classify the editions of a book or product

件

individual

to classify clothes, or general implements

套

individual

to classify a pack/set of artifacts

身

individual

to classify wearing clothes

家

individual

to classify families or institutions

首

individual

to classify poems, songs, or music

曲

individual

to classify songs or music

部

individual

to classify machines, automobiles, volumes of books or movies

台

individual

to classify machines or large appliances

袭

individual

to classify clothes especially long dresses

波

event

to classify series of actions

轮

event

to classify sequences of events

场

event

to classify scheduled events

届

event

to classify events held on a regular basis

局

event

to classify the occurrence of games

期

event

to classify events that involve stages of completion

番

event

to denote times of a repeated event

种

kind

to classify kinds of entities

类

kind

to classify entities in categories

款

kind

to classify categories of manufactured products

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© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Zhao, X., Hsu, YY., Huang, CR. (2024). Classifiers of Mandarin Alphabetical Words with Character-Alphabet Structure. In: Dong, M., Hong, JF., Lin, J., Jin, P. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 14514. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0583-2_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0583-2_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-97-0582-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-97-0583-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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