試談敦煌變文中的兩類名量詞及其語義功能的差異

In addition to examining the eight classifiers and the noun phrases constructed from the classifiers in the Dunhuang manuscripts of the Tang-Five Dynasties period, this study shall point to the division of these eight classifiers into two types. The first type is the “initially-dominant,” generally ordered as “numeral +classifier+noun,” with the classifier preceding the noun. The second is the “following-dominant” type, which is generally ordered as “noun+ numeral+classifier,” with the classifier following the noun. The study will show that the two types had different functions; the former served to assign the noun a particular “form” or “attribute,” while the latter type did not have this function. It was because the noun phrase ordered as “numeral+classifier+noun,” produced the syntactic meaning of high “individuality” that the former generally preceded the noun.