Current Issues in Chinese Syntax: A Critical Review of Mandarin Chinese by Charles N.Li and Sandra A. Thompson (Part 1)

Author: Ting-chi Tang(Department of English College of Liberal Arts)

Abstract：

The present work is a critical review of Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson's Mandarin Chinese: a functional reference grammar as well as a synthetic survey of current issues in Chinese syntax, which include among other topics: (1) Is Chinese really an isolating language? (2) Is Chinese really a monosyllabic language? (3) Is Chinese a topic-prominent or a subject-prominent language? (4) Is Chinese an SOV or and SVO language; (5) What are the basic morphological structures and morphological rules in Chinese? (6) How can subject and topic be distinguished from each other? (7) How can the definiteness and the reference of a noun phrase be determined in Chinese? (8) What is the basic constituent structure of a noun phrase and pronominal modification in Chinese? It is hoped that the review will be a contribution to modern linguistic analysis in general and a better understanding of Chinese syntax in particular.

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