In this chapter, we discuss the Mandarin syllable and recent innovations in its study. The focus will be on the segmentation of the syllable into phonological units, an area of research that features a proposal for the combination of segments into phonological units for almost every permutation possible. At the core of the new work in this area is the combined use of network science and psycholinguistic experimentation. We review exploratory work modeling the lexicon according to phonological networks, wherein words are the nodes of the network and the networks' edges are identified through the addition deletion or substitution of a single segment or lexical tone. We argue that lexical access viewed in light of syllable segmentation modelled through phonological networks sees the lexicon as multiple concurrent networks that, when given the demands of a specific task, activate connections most fit for the goals of the task.

Sentence-final particles are normally assumed to occur in the CP domain, i.e., the domain of the complementizer phrase. Their exact syntactic position varies given the heterogeneity of these elements. The position of these particles usually depends on how they are categorized semantically, and also on how they conform to different syntactic principles. Several distinctive and often competing approaches are addressed here. This chapter also discusses those 'sentence-final particles' that are found in the lower domains and revisits the question of whether some, if not all, elements that are said to belong to the category of sentence-final particles should be construed as non-CP elements.

The primary goal of this chapter is to present the state of the art on Chinese intonation research, with a focus on how tone and intonation interact. To this end, the general functions and forms of intonation observed in (Mandarin) Chinese are first introduced. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the multiplexing of the f0 channel for tone and intonation in varieties of Chinese as well as the different proposals posited for intonation modeling. The secondary goal of this chapter is to highlight open issues and suggest potential points for future research on intonation in Chinese.