An interesting usage of measure words

[Luoman]

Textbooks teach us that in the Chinese language a measure word comes after a numeral and before a noun. I myself thought it to be this way before I started working with Singaporeans and noticed some very interesting usage:

1. "I am younger than you" - 我比你小个.

2. "I don`t need this hammer, give me a bigger one " - it sounded something like 我不要这个锤子，给我大只，大只一点.

I am really at a loss. How to explain these grammar patterns, when measure words come after adjectives?

Is it from Cantonese or some other dialect?

[richiechen]

I've never heard of that in Mainland.

I'm a native Chinese born and brought up in Jiangsu Mainland and I have many classmates who are from other province of China mainland, but never heard of that.

If you are learning mandarin (Putonghua), don't care about that, it's just one of the so many many Chinese dialects.

Standard Putonghua

I'm younger that you. 我比你小 or 我比你年轻

hammer. 给我一只大的, 给我一个大的, and verbal 给我个大的

[Luoman]

Maybe it`s really the Cantonese dialect. They spoke it between themselves, and when speaking Mandarin their grammar was somewhat strange. For example they didn`t say 我比他好，they said 我好过他.

[Quest]

1. "I am younger than you" - 我比你小个.

2. "I don`t need this hammer, give me a bigger one " - it sounded something like 我不要这个锤子，给我大只，大只一点.

In Cantonese:

我后生过你。

我唔要呢只锤，畀过只大啲嘅我。

Maybe it`s really the Cantonese dialect.

check this out, Chinese is not binary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dialects#List_of_dialects_and_languages

[Luoman]

I asked my friends from Taiwan and Malaysia, and they said all my examples are part of standard Mandarin used in Taiwan and Malaysia. But still, I want to understand this grammar better and analyse it.