Current research on variations in Mandarin often focuses on the comparisons between Mainland China Mandarin (MCM) and other non-MCM varieties, and less between various non-MCM varieties. This study seeks to compare Mandarin across more regions, in this case, Mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore. This paper presents part of the findings of a pilot study on this issue, using aspect marking as a case study. It is found that a number of the variations identified in both Singapore Mandarin (SM) and Taiwan Mandarin (TWM) are in fact commonalities. A large-scale study of this may shed light on the variations that are, in fact, shared among non-MCM varieties and affect how these variations should be viewed in the large context of Global Chinese or World Chinese.
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