Dimension-denoting classifiers in Taiwanese compound adjectives

Abstract

This paper analyzes Taiwanese A-CL sequences as compound adjectives by treating the classifier inside such sequences as a dimension provider and the adjective as involving an ordering function. Combined with the assumption that classifiers occurring as the CL of A-CL compound adjectives should be divided into single-dimension denoting and multi-dimension denoting elements, the analysis provides a rationale for why the adjectives permitted in A-CL compound adjectives have the interesting and otherwise perplexing property of being so limited in number.