material nouns (in Mandarin)
│ One important feature of material nouns
│ is that, unlike other common nouns, which
│ have their own specific measure words, material nouns must first be grouped,
│ packaged, partitioned, or measured in terms of national or international
│ standards before they can be counted.
This makes more sense after reading an English grammar or linguistics definition of Material Noun which states more simply that it's a tangible thing which cannot be counted. So, of course, Chinese material nouns would have to be gathered up into something before they could be tagged with a measure word.
Tags: mandarin
Tags
Navigation