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.

翻译：量化是日常语言使用的基本组成部分，然而对于说话者在自然产出中如何决定是否及如何进行量化，目前知之甚少。本研究通过一项基于图片的诱发描述任务，考察汉语中的量化现象：说话者自由描述包含多个物体的场景，且未收到明确的计数或量化指令。在口语和书面语两种模态中，我们考察了量化的三个方面：说话者是否选择量化、其量化的精确度如何，以及他们采用何种量化策略。结果表明，物体数量、生命性及产出模态系统地塑造了量化行为。具体而言，物体数量的增加会降低量化的可能性和精确度，而有生命指称对象和产出模态则选择性地调节策略选择。本研究展示了如何在无约束的产出条件下考察量化现象，并为语言产出中数量表达的进一步分析提供了一个自然主义数据集。