The Mandarin Chinese nominal affix, -men: a non-unified analysis of a lexical and inflectional plural

This dissertation investigates the syntactic structure of the Mandarin Chinese nominal marker, -men. While it is commonly accepted that classifier languages lack plural morphology, many classifier languages have attested plural morphology, including Mandarin Chinese. I note that -men is restricted to pronouns, proper names, and some common nouns and is generally obligatory only on pronouns. While it generally cannot occur with quantificational expressions, it is not, contrary to most literature, barred from co- occurring with classifiers. This thesis explores the range of variation of plural marking by re-examining the distribution and interpretation of -men. It proposes that on common nouns, it is a lexical plural marker in the nP. This thesis also contends that a unified analysis of -men as it appears on common nouns and on pronouns and proper names is not possible. The data shows that the behaviour of the latter use of -men is far more restricted and less influenced by pragmatic concerns and thus should be considered an inflectional plural marker on pronouns.