Fragment answers in Mandarin Chinese
Ting‐Chi Wei · International Journal of Chinese Linguistics · 2016
The derivational differences of the fragment answers in Mandarin Chinese lie in whether a fragment moves or not. Under the movement and ellipsis analysis (Merchant 2004), fragment answer towh-question moves to SpecFocP, followed by TP ellipsis. In contrast, fragment answer to yes-no question or for correction is a base-generated structure, [procopula fragment]. The analysis is supported not only by the existence of the copular verb and the fragment answers to questions involving the passive constructions and preposition stranding but also by cross-linguistic evidence.