Remarks on the syntax of Mandarin yes-no questions

Abstract

According to C.-T. Huand (1991), Chinese “A-not-a questions” are not syntactically unitary but fall into two types whose syntax has literally nothing in common. I argue that Huang is incorrect in assimilating the “disjunctive” variety of A-not-A questions to alternative questions, in that disjunctive questions are subject to a number of restrictions that do not apply to alternative questions, for example, a restriction that the positive conjunct precede the negative one. While accepting the basic idea of Huang's rule for “reduplicative” A-not-A questions, I note that restrictions on negation are mirrored not only in disjunctive questions where, for Huang the negative element is a real negation, but also in reduplicative questions, where for Huang there is only an apparent negation. I conclude that the full spectrum of A-not-A questions in Chinese reflects not synchronically unrelated constructions but rather different ways of specializing an, alternative question for the function of a yes-no question.