On the inner-outer dichotomy of A-not-A questions
Abstract
Abstract In this article, a fine-grained cartographic analysis of Mandarin A-not-A questions is proposed to account for their interactions with various functional elements along the clausal spine: Inner A-not-A questions are sensitive to certain locality effects in Minimalist terms, whereas outer A-not-A questions are immune to the interference. It is proposed that the former combines two operations: The first step involves head movement to the head of PolP in overt syntax, which can be blocked by an intervening functional head. The second step involves LF feature movement to the Int head, which can be blocked by an intervening quantifier. By contrast, the latter resides in the left periphery, hence no modals or quantifiers are high enough to trigger blocking effects.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Syntax
Semantics
Linguistic Variation
Phonetics and Phonology Research
Categorization
perception
and language
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Linguistik aktuell
- Publisher
- John Benjamins Publishing Company
- Pages
- 262–280
- Publication date
- 15 January 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter