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Volume 13, Issue 1
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Abstract

This paper examines recent advancements in the study of donkey sentences in Mandarin. Cheng and Huang’s (1996) seminal work distinguishes two types of donkey conditionals, namely, bare conditionals and -/-conditionals, based on an alleged complementary distribution between -phrases and other anaphoric forms in the consequent clause. They argue that anaphoric -phrases function as bound variables, whereas anaphoric pronouns are interpreted as E-type pronouns. Pan and Jiang (2015) challenge this account by demonstrating that both -phrases and pronouns can function as either bound variables or E-type pronouns in both types of conditionals. In response, Cheng and Huang (2020) revise their original dichotomy in an effort to accommodate various counterexamples. This paper argues that their revised account remains inadequate, thereby supporting Pan and Jiang’s null hypothesis. We also evaluate a recent proposal that treats both -clauses in a bare conditional as -questions, and show that it faces significant problems. Finally, we situate Mandarin bare conditionals in a cross-linguistic context by highlighting their similarities with correlatives.

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2026-05-21
2026-06-07

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/content/journals/10.1075/ijchl.00044.kua
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): conditionals; correlatives; donkey sentences; E-type anaphora; unselective binding; wh-phrases

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