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This article presents a sketch of the different components that determine the syntactic characteristics of Mandarin. References have been kept to a minimum as there are crossreferences to other articles in this encyclopedia for almost every topic and subtopic, where ample references can be found. General reference grammars are Chao (1968), Li and Thompson (1981), Huang et al. (2009), and the more recent Huang and Shi (2016).  1. Morphemes and Words A morpheme is the smallest unit with meaning. A word is the smallest unit that has an independent function in syntax. 1.1 Morphemes Most nati…

Generative linguistics was introduced to Hong Kong in the late 1960s, as part of the course "Introduction to Language and Linguistics" offered to language studies students at the University of Hong Kong and subsequently the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Individual courses on generative syntax, generative phonology, and semantics were not offered until the 1980s. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, several departments with “linguistics” as part of their title appeared in Hong Kong tertiary insti…