PREFACE to the Special Issue of Papers from the LFK Society YS Symposium

The primary goals of the Li Fang-Kuei Society (henceforth LFK Society) are to honor and preserve Professor Li Fang-Kuei’s memory as a scholar and a man: to foster continuing research through the establishment of the journal Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics (henceforth BCL) in those academic areas to which he devoted his life, and to nurture future torch bearers in the spirit of innovation to continue this gentleman-scholar tradition through holding the Young Scholars Symposium (henceforth YS Symposium) periodically, as well as engaging in other related activities. Professor Li Fang-Kuei was one of the greatest linguists of the twentieth century who was dedicated to excellence and integrity in scholarship. Throughout the course of his long and productive life, he not only strongly supported academic scholarship but also carefully attended to the upbringing of younger generations of scholars. The great achievement of Professor Li Fang-Kuei lies not just in his intellectual talent but also in the broadness of his academic training and interest, including field investigation of American Indian languages, Tai languages and Austronesian language (in Taiwan), historical comparative studies in Tai, historical study in Archaic Chinese, comparative study of classical Tibetan and Chinese, and Sino-Tibetan. The purpose of the YS Symposium is to assemble a group of promising young scholars from all over the world who are working in academic areas related to those pursued by Professor Li Fang-Kuei during his scholarly life. Our hope is that the Symposium will facilitate free and open exchange of ideas in a stimulating and collegial environment of the sort that Professor Li Fang-Kuei himself always fostered and encouraged at scholarly gatherings. Although there are a sizeable number of bright young scholars in various sub-fields of Chinese and Sino-Tibetan linguistics, there are few opportunities for them to gather and share their ideas freely, to forge a sense of common identity and to formulate a vision for the future. The Symposium provides a platform for these promising young scholars to argue for their own viewpoints but at the same time to engage respectfully with differences of opinion, as well as to foster a spirit of cooperation, mutual support and productive criticism. Through the Symposium we not only honor Prof. Li Fang-Kuei’s rigorous scholarship and fine character, but also hope to instill these same qualities in the upcoming generation of scholars who will continue the outstanding legacy left to us by Professor Li Fang-Kuei. In 2013, the LFK Society held its First three-day YS Symposium in Seattle, which was a resounding success. In 2018, the LFK Society held its Second three-day YS Symposium in Taiwan, which was another resounding success, resulting in the general demand of holding this Symposium regularly every five years. The YS Symposium is unique in format in that the structure of the presentations lies in having each paper presented by a scholar other than the author and then discussed by an expert in the field, followed by a free and open general discussion. In addition, the young scholars share their academic interests through presenting research papers from different sub-disciplines using an innovative methodology of preparing and distributing their research papers several months before the Symposium and doing summaries of papers other than their own. The Symposium centers on discussion.