Abstract: There exists an ever-lasting debate between the syntactic model and the inferential model concerning the processing mechanism of Neg-Raising Constructions (NRC). Using an acceptability judgment task, the present study investigates Chinese EFL learners’ NRC processing mechanism on three indicators (lower-positioned negatives in deep structures, syntactic movement operations and Neg-dependent distances) in three types of contexts (the neutral context and the contexts biased towards the syntactic model and the referential model respectively). The results reveal that the relevant indicators are significant in the biased contexts, especially in the one towards the referential model; but not in the neutral one. It concludes that the syntactic model is preferred to the inferential model in terms of the predictions for the NRC processing mechanism. Both the results and the conclusion can be well accounted for under the Hypothesis of Explicit Neg (-Position) -Sensitive Markers (ENSM) proposed in this study.