[card_zero]

I guess the measure word works equivalently to a unit of measurement, then. One bottle of beer, one sack of sugar, one 条 of pant.

[thaumasiotes]

Correct. In Chinese all nouns require them.

(It's not the case, however, that all measure words require nouns. 天 ("day") and 年 ("year") are measure words that are almost always used on their own. There might be an implicit notion of "one day of time" or similar.)