This book presents pioneering accounts by leading scholars of twelve central aspects of the grammar of Chinese languages. Deploying a combination of historical and typological approaches it shows the variety and diversity of Chinese languages as well as the extent to which these and their dialects differ from Mandarin. Each author provides full background information on the language or dialect under consideration including its historical and contemporary context. In her introduction Dr Chappell describes the history and geography of Chinese languages. "A must-read... a vital reassessment of the field which shows there is much to be learned by integrating historical study with dialectal investigation." Journal of Linguistics "Chappell combines typological observations of Sinitic and non-Sinitic languages with general linguistic theory in a most satisfying fashion.... A very welcome, refeshing and exciting contribution." Cahiers de Linguistique Hilary Chappell is senior lecturer in linguistics at La Trobe University. Her published work includes The Grammar of Inalienability (with William McGregor, Amsterdam, 1995). She is currently writing a book on the typology of Chinese languages, also to be published by OUP.

Part I: Introduction 1. Synchrony and Diachrony of Sinitic Languages: A Brief History of Chinese Dialects, Hilary Chappell Part II: Typological and Comparative Grammar 2. The Development of Locative Markers in the Xiang-Changsha Dialect, Yunji Wu 3. A Typology of Evidential Markers in Sinitic Languages, Hilary Chappell 4. Verb Complement Constructions in Chinese Dialects: Types and Markers, Christine Lamarre Part III: Historical and Diachronic Grammar 5. Vestiges of Archaic Chinese Derivational Affixes in Modern Chinese Dialects, Laurent Sagart 6. Markers of Predication in Shang Bone Inscriptions, Redouane Djamouri 7. On the Modal Auxiliaries of Volition in Classical Chinese, Alain Peyraube Part IV: Yue Grammar 8. The Interrogative Construction: (Re)constructing Early Cantonese Grammar, Hung-Nin Samuel Cheung 9. The Verb Complement Construction in Historical Perspective with Special Reference to Cantonese, Anne Yue 10. Aspects of Contemporary Cantonese Grammar: The Structure and Stratification of Relative Clauses, Stephen Matthews and Virginia Yip Part V: Southern Min Grammar 11. Semantics and Syntax of Verbal and Adjectival Reduplication in Mandarin and Taiwanese Southern Min, Tsao Feng-Fu 12. Competing Morphological Changes in Taiwanese Southern Min, Chinfa Lien 13. Aspects of Historical-Comparative Syntax: Functions of Prepositions in Taiwanese and Mandarin, Ying-Che Li