Academic discussions of the count/mass distinction in Chinese feature three general problems, upon which this essay critically reflects: 1) Most studies focus either on modern or on classical Chinese, thus representing parallel discussions that never intersect; 2) studies on count/mass grammar are often detached from reflections on count/mass semantics, which results in serious theoretical and terminological flaws; 3) approaches to Chinese often crucially depend on observations of English grammar and semantics, as, e.g., many/much vs. few/little patterns, the use of plural inflections, etc., which is seldom justified. This article investigates the relevant discourse on the count/mass issue in classical and modern Chinese and concludes with exploring two distinct areas related to countability: the semantics of singular in contexts in which objects are introduced as referential-indefinite and the semantics of number and countability as revealed in diangu.

学术界讨论汉语的计数/质量区分存在三个普遍问题，本文对此进行了批判性反思：1）大多数研究要么集中在现代汉语，要么集中在文言文，因此平行讨论从不交叉；2）对计数/质量语法的研究往往脱离对计数/质量语义的反思，导致严重的理论和术语缺陷；3) 研究中文的方法通常关键取决于对英语语法和语义的观察，例如，many/much vs. few/little 模式，复数变形的使用等，这很少被证明是正确的。本文调查了古典和现代汉语中关于计数/质量问题的相关论述，并以探索与可数性相关的两个不同领域作为结论：电鼓。