Just curious, what is your specialization exactly?
I am especially interested in questions within semantics, maybe broadly construed as language and cognition.
When it comes to typological studies however, it seems that most currently spoken languages are still relatively systematic (I can't remember the years, but googling Dryer and Cinque should do it, one was a professor of mine and they seem to be leading typologists, I often wonder if there's anything left to do in the field).
Dryer is a leader in the field, no doubt. An excellent and respected linguist.
But I would say that all languages are "systematic"; it's just that some systems are more complex than others. (and all the systems have exceptions, but some have more than others)
I agree, it's an interesting issue but there are arguments everywhere, although Chinese speakers also have a better chance at learning fluid-sounding English than those of Japanese or Korean speaking origin, and while I'm not too familiar with the Asian languages, Chinese seems to be the most complex of these to me...this was found through a Master's Project/some other sociolinguistic expertise literally today, but I thought it was a super interesting find.
The syntax of Mandarin is simpler than that of Japanese or Korean.
In fact, of all the languages I have studied, Mandarin (and Classical Chinese) is (are) the closest to "not having a system", though I would hate to describe it that way.
What I mean is that much of the meaning typically expressed in English, for example, may be left to pragmatic inference, rather than explicitly expressed, and that words can be added or left out based on "feeling" more than in English.
(Having simple syntax doesn't always mean it is easy to understand or produce Mandarin for us non-native speakers! Since things are "left out", we can have a lot of trouble understanding...)
In Japanese and Korean, the syntax surrounding levels of respect is almost overwhelming, but nothing like this exists in Chinese.
If you are interested, this grammar of Mandarin reveals just how much pragmatics play a role:
http://www.amazon.com/Mandarin-Chinese-Functional-Reference-Grammar/dp/0520066103