4.3.5. Measure phrases

A Measure Phrase is a construction including a measure noun, namely a noun referring to time, capacity, weight, length, temperature, or currency.

         In LIS, when cardinals are included in Measure Phrases, they show a special distributional pattern in that they always occur prenominally. Therefore, they always appear before the measure noun. In the following examples, cardinal three precedes metre, cardinal two precedes kilogramme, and cardinal two^hundred thousand precedes time.

 

                      

         a.            three                       metre

         ‘Three metres’

 

                      

         b.            two                      kilogramme

         ‘Two kilogrammes’

 

                          

         c.            two^hundred             thousand                                 time

         ‘Two hundred thousand times’ (based on Mantovan, 2017: 170)