My research primarily focuses on syntactic knowledge and its representation, the acquisition of this syntactic knowledge, and the variation in how dialects reflect these syntactic differences. My work specifically examines syntactic structure (sometimes involving the syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse interface) in Mandarin Chinese through a comparison of the same constructions across different languages and groups of Mandarin speakers. My current work centers on comparing the syntactic knowledge of Mandarin homeland (Mandarin-dominant L1, Taiwanese Mandarin), Mandarin L2, and Mandarin heritage (English-dominant L1) speakers, with a special focus on how knowledge of Mandarin verbs is represented in these groups. Studying these learners may help us unlock the mysteries of language and human cognition.
Dissertation
Acquisition of the Syntax Semantics of Light Verbs in Mandarin Bilinguals. June 2025.
Committee: Acrisio Pires (co-Chair), Natasha Abner (co-Chair), Savithry Namboodiripad, Teresa Satterfield and C.-T. Tim Chou
Master thesis
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. 2015. On right dislocation in Mandarin Chinese. MA, thesis. National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Current work
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy (Invited revision). Light verb syntax and semantics of Mandarin heritage speakers.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy (In Prep). Second language acquisition of Light verbs in Mandarin Chinese.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy (In Prep). On L1 acquisition of light verbs in Mandarin Chinese.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy (In Prep). On L2 Mandarin Chinese acquisition of light verbs: A corpus study
Papers
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. (2022) Mandarin Chinese Right Dislocation as remnant movement: Evidence against an ellipsis analysis. Academia Letters. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL5321
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. (2018). A remnant movement analysis of right dislocation: Deriving word order, complementizers and a Topic/Focus distinction in Mandarin Chinese. Qualifying Research Paper. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. (2017). Right dislocation in Mandarin Chinese: A case for the movement analysis. In Proceedings of the 29th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-29) Volume 2, ed. by Lan Zhang. 304-315. University of Memphis, Memphis, TN.
Conference presentation
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. Light verb syntax of English-Mandarin bilinguals. Poster presented at Theoretical East Asian Linguistics 13 (TEAL 13), Taipei, Taiwan, May 12-14, 2023. Links for poster, abstract
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. Light verb syntax of Mandarin heritage speakers. Poster presented at LSA 2023 (Linguistic Society of America 97th Annual Meeting), January 5-8, 2023.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. Light verb syntax and semantics of Mandarin heritage speakers. Paper presented at Heritage Language Syntax 3 (HLS 3), Paris, France, October 20-21, 2022.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy & Savithry Namboodiripad. Auditory or written stimuli? A case study from acceptability judgment tasks. Paper presented at The 34th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-34). Indiana University Bloomington, USA, September 23-25, 2022.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. L2 acquisition of the Mandarin light verb syntax and semantics. Poster presented at ICTEAP-3. National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, November 20-21, 2021.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. Child acquisition of the syntax and semantics of light verbs: A corpus study of Mandarin. Research abstract will be presented at ISOCTAL-3. UCC, Cork, Ireland, December 12-14, 2019.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. Right dislocation in Mandarin Chinese: A case for the movement analysis. Research abstract presented at NACCL-29. Rutgers University, USA, June 16-19, 2017.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. Second language acquisition of the bi comparative construction in Mandarin Chinese. Research abstract presented at 3rd International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language Research (CASLAR 2014). Parma, Italy, August 28-30, 2014.
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy. On right dislocation in Mandarin Chinese. Poster presented at The 16th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG 16). Seoul, Korea, August 6-8, 2014.
Joint work
Chiang, Yu-Chuan Lucy & Lisa Levinson. 2025. Mandarin Relative Clauses in the Maze: Expectations over Memory. Poster will be presented at HSP 2025, 38th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Maryland, USA, March 27-29, 2025.
Levinson, Lisa, Rohan Raju, Yu-Chuan Lucy Chiang & Sid Bhushan. 2025. Multitasking Events in English: Cross-task Conceptual Replications and Re-evaluations. Poster will be presented at HSP 2025, 38th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Maryland, USA, March 27-29, 2025.
Levinson, Lisa, Yizhi Tang, Yu-Chuan Lucy Chiang, Wei-Jie Zhou & Sohee Chung. 2023. Multilingual A-maze: Generating Maze Experiments in Mandarin and Beyond. Poster presented at HSP 2023, 36th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing, March 9-11, 2023.
Tang, Yizhi, Yu-Chuan Lucy Chiang & Lisa Levinson. 2023. Multilingual A-maze: Generating Maze Experiments in Mandarin and Beyond. Poster presented at LSA 2023 (Linguistic Society of America 97th Annual Meeting), January 5-8, 2023.