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Updated: Feb 22, 2026

Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
Published on: April 1, 2016
Mathematical values in the processing of Chinese numeral classifiers and measure words
One-Soon Her1,2, Ying-Chun Chen1, Nai-Shing Yen2,3
1Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Abstract:
A numeral classifier is required between a numeral and a noun in Chinese, which comes in two varieties, sortal classifer (C) and measural classifier (M), also known as 'classifier' and 'measure word', respectively. Cs categorize objects based on semantic attributes and Cs and Ms both denote quantity in terms of mathematical values. The aim of this study was to conduct a psycholinguistic experiment to examine whether participants process C/Ms based on their mathematical values with a semantic distance comparison task, where participants judged which of the two C/M phrases was semantically closer to the target C/M. Results showed that participants performed more accurately and faster for C/Ms with fixed values than the ones with variable values. These results demonstrated that mathematical values do play an important role in the processing of C/Ms. This study may thus shed light on the influence of the linguistic system of C/Ms on magnitude cognition.
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