Asymmetrical Behaviors of Presuppositions of Lian-constructions in Chinese*

This paper discusses semantic properties of lian-constructions in Mandarin Chinese. It is argued that the two kinds of lian-constructions, lian…dou and lian…ye, require an asymmetrical analysis, and a major difference between them can be accounted for by the (non-)occurrence of certain presuppositions. The evidence is drawn from the felicitousness of the two lian-constructions in different contexts. It is also pointed out that an effect on the sufficiency of informativeness depends on the positional occurrence of them in the contexts