Summary

Noun phrases are fundamental elements found in different languages. Mandarin Chinese (MC) noun phrases lack extensive morphological forms, such as plural makers, but can effectively convey definiteness and plurality. This complicates the exploration of the structural features and the representation of key aspects within MC noun phrases in the syntactic structure. Previous studies have concentrated on illustrating the structural forms of MC noun phrases through syntactic distribution and interpretation in concrete contexts The key components of MC noun phrases typically consist of classifiers (such as ben (本)), the affix -men (们), and de (的). The classifiers’ uniqueness is associated with the countability of the noun head, allowing only countable nouns to be collocated with them. The affix -men is commonly seen as a plural marker or a collective marker, with its syntactic role remaining ambiguous. The functions of de in nominals range from marking modifiers to elements that allude to referentiality. These three elements correspond to the main aspects of the syntactic structure in MC noun phrases: countability, plurality, and referentiality. This raises a further issue about the representation of these elements in the syntactic structure. The syntactic status of items within MC noun phrases is closely connected to the representation of the syntactic structure when viewed broadly. Hence, the analysis of the structure and representation of MC noun phrases still requires further discussion to elucidate the features of internal parts inside MC noun phrases and the projection of syntactic structure.