This study examines the classifier as semantic-syntactic language feature and investigates the semantic classifier congruency effect in language production. Participants were instructed to name a picture (e.g., noodles) after seeing or hearing a classifier (e.g., a bowl of). In Experiment 1 with English monolinguals, better performance was observed in semantically congruent trials (a bowl of noodles) than in semantically incongruent trials (a bowl of students). In Experiments 2 and 3 with Chinese-English bilinguals, the semantic classifier congruency effect was replicated, but the effect differed in size as a function of the language (smaller for L2 English than for L1 Chinese), language switching (smaller in repeat than in switch trials) and of classifier modality (smaller for written than spoken classifier presentation). Together, these findings provide evidence for a semantic classifier effect in both L1 and L2. Furthermore, they suggest an influence of semantic-syntactic language features in bilingual language control.