This question might sound weird.
Are determiners mandatory in Chinese?
I have in mind words such as demonstratives 这, quantifying words 一些, 许多, etc.
This paper (Chen 2004) states:
Finally, we turn to the last question: is it justified to assert that definiteness as a grammatical category, in the narrow sense of the term, exists in Chinese? English presents an exemplary case for the existence of definiteness as a grammatical category, as the language displays a paradigmatic contrast between two simple, fully grammaticalized articles, one definite and the other indefinite. (...) Chinese, however, represents a case that does not accord very well with what has been established for these languages in the current literature. To begin with, there is no simple, fully grammaticalized marker of definiteness in Chinese, like the definite article in English. (...) Furthermore, it is not obligatory to mark a nominal expression as either definite or indefinite in Chinese, as is the case in English.
In contrast, this paper (Orvig et al. 2013) concerning French determiners states:
In French – except for certain non-referential uses (see Table 2 below) – determiners (Leeman, 2004) are mandatory to actualize a noun and convey the marks of gender and number.
So I am looking for a scientific reference which states something echoing the statement in the paper on French, something like "Determiners are not mandatory to actualize a noun and convery the marks of gender and number."
References:
Chen, P. (2004). Identifiability and definiteness in Chinese. Linguistics, 42, 1129-1184.
Orvig, A. S., Marcos, H., Caët, S., Corlateanu, C., Da Silva, C., Hassan, R., ... & Morgenstern, A. (2013). Definite and indefinite determiners in French-speaking toddlers: Distributional features and pragmatic-discursive factors. Journal of pragmatics, 56, 88-112.
