City University of Hong Kong CLASS CLASS
Making Sense of Grammar
1 like 0 dislike
410 views

What is the function of MEN (們) in Mandarin?

asked Jan 2, 2018 in Questions about Chinese Grammar by admin (25,520 points) | 410 views

1 Answer

0 like 0 dislike

According to Chaofen Sun (2006), MEN (們) is one type of inflectional morphemes in Chinese. It is a plural suffix which only applies to human nouns and pronouns in an optional manner. For instance, w˘o-m´en (我們) stands for “we”, and h´aizi-m´en (孩子們) means “children.” However, other Chinese nominals generally do not mark plurality.

answered Jan 2, 2018 by admin (25,520 points)

1,614 questions

1,882 answers

207 comments

15,645 users

1,614 questions
1,882 answers
207 comments
15,645 users