Different omission mechanisms in an A-not-A coordination - Backward deletion vs. forward ellipsis

This paper explores the derivation mechanism of A-not-A questions, one of the four types of interrogatives in Mandarin Chinese. Most previous literature has adopted Huang’s (1991) modular approach to explain the various subtypes of A-not-A questions either through reduplication or Anaphoric Ellipsis. However, Huang’s approaches leave unexplained a set of theoretical issues, e.g., the nature of negation in A-not-A questions. Building on Huang (1991), I argue for a unified analysis of the different A-not-A variants, i.e., the syntax of A-not-A questions is an asyndetic coordination (no coordinators between conjuncts), and the different A-not-A variants are derived from either backward deletion or forward ellipsis.