Can noun modifiers be stranded or extracted in Mandarin?

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of whether noun modifiers can be stranded or extracted in Mandarin. I argue that there is no positive evidence that noun modifiers can be stranded in Mandarin, and that noun modifiers cannot be extracted in Mandarin. Specifically, I show that the so-called "split NP" constructions, which are often taken to involve stranding of a noun modifier, should be subsumed under a phenomenon I refer to as "split partitivity". I further show that "split partitivity" does not involve left-branch extraction of a noun modifier, but involves extraction from Spec, DP, the "escape hatch" for extraction.