Six reconstruction effects in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

The paper presents empirical evidence for six reconstruction effects in Mandarin Chinese. It includes data concerning the copula verb, epistemic modals, scope of aspectual sentence-final particle –le over indefinite wh-phrases, downward entailing quantifiers, predicates of creation, Binding Condition B, quantifier scope and dōu-quantification. The syntactic structures in which reconstruction applies can be derived either by A- or A-bar-movement. Our investigation brings empirical facts to bear on the syntax-semantics interface showing an essential property of natural language that semantic properties and syntactic structures do not vary freely.