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Likelihood ratio theory has had tremendous success in parametric inference, due to the fundamental theory of Wilks. Yet, there is no general applicable approach for nonparametric inferences based on function estimation. Maximum likelihood ratio test statistics in general may not exist in nonparametric function estimation setting. Even if they exist, they are hard to find and can not be optimal as shown in this paper. We introduce the generalized likelihood statistics to overcome the drawbacks of nonparametric maximum likelihood ratio statistics. A new Wilks phenomenon is unveiled. We demonstrate that a class of the generalized likelihood statistics based on some appropriate nonparametric estimators are asymptotically distribution free and follow χ2-distributions under null hypotheses for a number of useful hypotheses and a variety of useful models including Gaussian white noise models, nonparametric regression …