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.
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created: 2025-04-20
(re)generated: 2025-05-25
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