Contents������ǰ��Chapter 1 Introduction 11.1 Research background 11.2 Research aims and research questions 51.3 Significance of the study 61.4 Structure of the book 8Chapter 2 Functional Categories and Their Deficits in Agrammatism 92.1 An overview of functional categories 92.2 Functional categories in Mandarin Chinese 132.2.1 CP 142.2.2 TP/AspP 222.2.3 vP: ba construction and bei construction 262.2.4 Summary 312.3 Functional category deficits in agrammatism 322.3.1 Deficits in production 322.3.2 Some accounts of agrammatic production 382.3.3 Deficits in comprehension 462.3.4 Some accounts of agrammatic comprehension 492.4 Limitations of the previous studies 532.5 Summary and motivation of the present study 57Chapter 3 The Synthesis of Synchronic and Diachronic Studies 583.1 An overview of synchronic and diachronic studies 583.2 Research design for the synchronic group study 593.2.1 Participants 593.2.2 Instruments 623.2.3 Procedures 633.2.4 Data collection 643.2.5 Data analysis 653.3 Research design for the diachronic case study 653.3.1 Participant 663.3.2 Tasks and materials 663.3.3 Procedures 933.3.4 Data collection 943.3.5 Data analysis 953.4 Summary 95Chapter 4 Results of the Synchronic and Diachronic Studies 974.1 Results of the synchronic group study 974.1.1 Comparisons between the IWA and NBD groups 984.1.2 Comparisons within the IWA 1094.2 Results of the diachronic case study 1184.2.1 Performance through time process 1184.2.2 Comparisons among different tasks 1374.2.3 Comparisons among different time frames 1454.2.4 Summary of the diachronic case study 1514.3 Discussion 1524.3.1 On the findings in the synchronic group study 1524.3.2 On the findings in the diachronic case study 157Chapter 5 General Discussion on Synchronic and Diachronic Studies 1705.1 Reconsiderations of some prior accounts 1715.1.1 The TDH 1715.1.2 The TPH 1735.1.3 The TUH 1745.1.4 The Impaired Interpretable Feature Hypothesis 1755.1.5 The DOP-H 1765.1.6 A Phase Theory-based alternative 1775.2 Some implications for Chinese linguistics 1825.2.1 Implications for le1 and le2 1835.2.2 Implications for the bei passives 1845.2.3 Implications for the theory of thematic order 186Chapter 6 Conclusion 1886.1 Summary of the present study 1886.2 Contributions of the present study 1916.3 Limitations of the design of the study 1926.4 Unresolved issues and directions for future research 194References 197Appendix A 212Appendix B 237