Abstract:

Under the framework of the Minimalist Syntax, this paper starts from categorizing the types of VP ellipses and analyzes the syntactic status of shi (是) in Mandarin Chinese. This paper argues that there exist two types of shi in Mandarin Chinese — copula shi and dummy auxiliary shi. The dummy auxiliary shi normally appears in coordinate context and is located in CFocus, licensing the topic focus in its specifier position. In addition, on the basis of "derivation by phase" theory and the "deletion approach", this paper proposes the "Parallelism Condition" to account for the different syntactic properties of VP ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese and English. Finally, this paper makes an extended study on gapping and pseudogapping in an attempt to account for their syntactic properties in Mandarin Chinese and English under a unified theoretical framework.