ABSTRACT
English and Chinese are two widely spoken world languages that differ genetically. This genetic difference has resulted in many subsidiary differences that are, among other things, related to grammar. Compared with typologically related languages, cross-linguistic contrast of English and Chinese is more challenging yet promising. The promise relates to the difference-by studying such language pairs in contrast, we can gain a better appreciation of the scale of variability in the human language system. The challenge arises from that promise-theories and observations based on closely related language pairs can give rise to conclusions which seem certain but which, when studied in the context of a language pair such as English and Chinese, become not merely problematized afresh, but signifi - cantly more challenging to resolve. This book is about this promise and this challenge.
