The Combinability of the Quantitative Groups with Separable Verbs in Modern Chinese

The article deals with the description of structural, semantic and syntagmatic properties of the verb-noun separable complexes in Modern Chinese. The distributional potential of separable verbs is discussed when such inserts as measure words, numerals, counting complexes and units with quantitative semantics are placed between the components of the two-syllable complexes. The analysis of the corpus material shows that the nature of interaction between the components of separable words with different quantitative groups, as well as the variety of possible inserts, depends on the degree of motivation of the semantics of the whole complex, as well as on the degree of unity of its components and their semantic weight. The same inserts are given different functional interpretations. Thus, for example, measure words, placing between the components of some verb-noun complexes, can function not only as quantifiers of the situation, but also as actualizers of the noun component of a two-syllable verb. Moreover, the noun components of some separable words can function as analogues of verb measure words, with some significant differences between them based on their semantic weight in the structure of the two-syllable complex. Thus, “empty“ noun components, which semantically duplicate the meaning of verb components, can take numerals in preposition and be considered as quasi-measure words. Such distributive potential allows to suppose a further grammaticalization of noun components of predicates with semantically “empty“ noun in their structure.

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