Can classifiers (measure words) do this?

[NelsonK]

I swear I read about this somewhere, but I can't remember where and now I can't find it anywhere -- so I thought I'd ask.  

 

Are there cases where "classifier + noun" (no numeral) can mean essentially "down to the last noun"?  As we might have said in English of an earlier era, "to a man"?

 

I'll give an example from 紅高粱家族 by 莫言 where I think this is happening.  The narrator here is talking about the sparrows that in late Fall/early Winter will come back to the bare trees in the evening and fall upon them en masse.

 

柳條青黃，赤裸裸下垂或上指，枝條上結滿麻雀。

 

To give my attempt at a rough translation: "The green-yellow willow branches, naked hanging down or pointing up, *to the last branch* laden with sparrows".

 

Now my dictionaries say that 枝條 can also just be a two-character word for branch, and maybe the 枝 has come in here just because the 柳 is gone and a two-character word is more idiomatic and natural than just saying 條, but when I looked over this sentence, I felt like I had a memory of this "classifier + noun" meaning "down to the last noun" thing.

 

Or maybe I just made up a fake grammatical construction that doesn't actually exist.

 

Anyway, if anyone can offer some insight, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

Thanks a bunch.

[Publius]

Where is the classifier in that sentence? If 枝 is a classifier, what is 條? It is more empty than 枝. The meaning is so diluted that in Modern Standard Mandarin it cannot be used alone as a noun.

枝上結滿麻雀 ✔

條上結滿麻雀 ✘

No, 枝條 is one word, formed by juxtaposing two morphemes that are synonymous or near-synonymous: 枝，木别生條也 + 條，小枝也.

 

There is a special use of classifiers, namely reduplication, that does convey the meaning of "every", or "down to the last one" if you prefer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classifier#Specialized_uses

https://baike.baidu.com/item/量词#5_1

In which case, the noun is often omitted.

條條大路通羅馬

人人奮勇，個個爭先

綻放的花兒，朵朵嬌豔欲滴

 

I don't think a bare classifier + noun is even grammatical in Mandarin. (Though it is in Cantonese, e.g. 枝筆幾錢/條女好正/塊面黑晒)

[Geiko]

2 hours ago, NelsonK said:

classifier + noun" (no numeral) can mean essentially "down to the last noun"?

 

Maybe you mean noun + classifier? As in 馬匹, which means horses, or 車輛 for vehicles. 

Edit to add more examples: 人口 、麵條、書本 

[roddy]

6 hours ago, NelsonK said:

I felt like I had a memory of this "classifier + noun" meaning "down to the last noun" thing.

I'd wager you're thinking of the reduplication Publius mentions. There's no need to read that sentence as anything other than "branches". 

[NelsonK]

Thanks,  Publius, Geiko and roddy.  I guess I was just imagining things.