Research Interests

My research areas are (i) language acquisition; (ii) syntax and semantics. My research has been done within a broadly generative framework in a cross-linguistic context. It has been mostly concerned with the logical form properties of Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) as well as their acquisition by young children. I have also been involved with the setting up of a tagged Cantonese child language database recording the early grammatical development of 8 children.

Representative Publications

• 1993. "The Learnability of Locality Conditions on Quantification" in S.H. Liu, H.H. Ho, T.M. Li, P.K. Chou, and Y.M. Fung (ed.) Papers on Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Language, New Asia Monograph Series No. 10. Hong Kong: New Asia College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, pp. 283-309.
• 1996. "Theoretical issues in language development and Chinese child language" in James C-T Huang and Audrey Li (eds.) New Horizons in Chinese Linguistics. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 293-356.
• 1996 (in press) "Scope and distributivity in Child Mandarin" in Eve Clark (ed) Proceedings of the 28th Stanford Child Language Research Forum. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.

Participation in Research Projects

• "The development of grammatical competence in Cantonese-speaking children" 1991-94 (RGC-funded)
• "The acquisition of modality by Cantonese-speaking children" 1996 (RGC-funded)
• "The acquisition of focus particles in Cantonese" 1997-98 (RGC-funded)
• "Milestones in the learning of Cantonese by pre-school children" 1997-99 (Language Fund)

Other Interests

Film, literature and politics.