This book aims to dispel the myth that Chinese "doesn't have words" but instead "has characters." Jerome Packard challenges the common belief that Chinese has no morphology, demonstrating how analysis of Chinese word formation enhances our understanding of word universals in natural language. His book describes the intimate relationship between words and their components and offers new insights into their evolution. Models are offered for how Chinese words are stored in the mental lexicon and processed in natural speech.

This unique book is the first collection of studies on an important yet under-investigated linguistic phenomenon, the processing and production of head-final syntactic structures. It includes contributions by recognized researchers and emerging scholars.