Can verb classifiers be borrowed from nouns
Xian Li · 2011
In Chinese,some are assumed to be borrowed from nouns.This paper argues that verb classifiers is not an appropriate term in this case since they act as a strategy for event reference reduplication in contexts.From the perspective of the transitivity theory,the paper clarifies two kinds of mechanism related to this phenomenon,morpheme-isolation and instrument-metonymy,and states the semantic restrictions of the co-occurring noun.Differring from a normal verb-classifier phrase semantically and syntactically,the so-called borrowed verb-classifier phrase can be considered as a potential core argument rather than an adjunction.