> Syntax is constrained by prosody, which is also extremely unintuitive to Mandarin learners. Definitely true, but I don't think your analysis holds. Prosody

> Syntax is constrained by prosody, which is also extremely unintuitive to Mandarin learners. Definitely true, but I don't think your analysis holds. Prosody is an important part of determining when you need bisyllabic or monosyllabic words in Chinese which doesn't have an equivalent in English, but you don't fill it in with what are effectively nonsense words. > you have to insert the meaningless 路 for the prosody to sound correct (you would say "我在走路" even if you weren't walking on a road at all!) Not really. 路 still has some semantic content. E.g. if you're walking about indoors in your house it sounds weird to say "走路." I do agree that a bisyllabic word sounds better there. Other context and emphasis could also make 我在走 work (I am walking for example), but often times that ties back to prosody as you say. > 们 is not always a pluralizer It is generally a pluralizer with the constraint that it must be applied for people. That's why it sounds weird applied to cows. 李先生们 could actually mean "Mr. Lis" (i.e. a group of men all with that surname, or some slang usage of "Mr. Li" in the same way you might say "they're a bunch of Benedict Arnolds"). Indeed that was my first instinct when you wrote that phrase. I don't understand what you mean by "and company." That's not how I would understand 李先生们. Also historically, 们 used to be an even more general people pluralizer that could be applied to demonstratives. E.g. in Song Dynasty Mandarin 那们 is perfectly acceptable and means "those people." It has become more restricted in modern usage. > In fact, most of the time, plurals in Mandarin are actually completely implicit and you have to figure it out from context! This is true.