An Interpretation of VP Ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese and English: Challenges and Solutions

The essay analyzes the similar properties of VP ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese and English, and presents briefly the two derivational approaches of VP ellipsis: PF-deletion and LF-copying. Then the essay states the two challenges of pronoun reference and trace problems in the elliptical site. Finally, it manages to offer a unified account of VPE in Mandarin Chinese in the framework of MP with the concrete examples of VPE in Mandarin Chinese, which avoid the problems demonstrated by PF-deletion and LF-copying. Syntactic identity (sloppy and strict reading) is explained as emerging at different points in the derivation: before and after lexical insertion respectively.