# How Do People Quantify Naturally: Evidence from Mandarin Picture Description

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09838 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.09838/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 26 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [VAQUUM: Are Vague Quantifiers Grounded in Visual Data?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11874/) (2025)
- [Understanding the Use of Quantifiers in Mandarin](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.11977/) (2022)
- [Be Precise or Fuzzy: Learning the Meaning of Cardinals and Quantifiers from Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.05270/) (2017)
- [Availability-Based Production Predicts Speakers' Real-time Choices of Mandarin Classifiers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07321/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Quantification is a fundamental component of everyday language use, yet little is known about how speakers decide whether and how to quantify in naturalistic production. We investigate quantification in Mandarin Chinese using a picture-based elicited description task in which speakers freely described scenes containing multiple objects, without explicit instructions to count or quantify. Across both spoken and written modalities, we examine three aspects of quantification: whether speakers choose to quantify at all, how precise their quantification is, and which quantificational strategies they adopt. Results show that object numerosity, animacy, and production modality systematically shape quantificational behaviour. In particular, increasing numerosity reduces both the likelihood and the precision of quantification, while animate referents and modality selectively modulate strategy choice. This study demonstrates how quantification can be examined under unconstrained production conditions and provides a naturalistic dataset for further analyses of quantity expression in language production.