本文提倡一致性分析(unified analysis)來衍生各種不同類型的正反問句(或稱反覆問句,A-not-A question)其中包含否定詞結尾問句(VP-neg question)。本文提議,所有類型的年反問句皆以同一個單一動詞組為基底,施以構詞重疊(morphological reduplication)而形成,惟某些類型之生成則必須再進行照應刪略(anaphoric ellipsis),根據此一提案,否定詞結尾問句之衍生,乃透過刪略手段,將動詞組重疊結構(VP-not-VP)刪除後段動詞組而達成。本文同時論證,現代漢語否定詞結尾問句實屬正反問句之變體,而不屬助詞問句(particle question, 鄭禮珊等人1996)。此論點可由語言事實加以佐證:否定詞結尾問句與其他類型正反問句在許多方面表現一致,但與典型的助詞問句(「嗎」)表現不同。
This paper advocates a unified analysis of various subtypes of A-not-A questions, including VP-neg questions. It is proposed that all A-not-A subtypes are derived from a simplex VP source via morphological reduplication, with certain subtypes undergoing a further process of anaphoric ellipsis Under this proposal, VP-neg questions are formed by deleting the second VP of a reduplicated VP-not-VP structure. It is argued that the analysis of VP-neg as an A-not-A variant is more desirable than the analysis of VP-neg as being on a par with a particle question (Cheng et al 1996), because a number of parallelisms are shown to exist between VP-neg and other subtypes of A-not-A questions, but not between VP-neg and typical particle questions.