Verb doubling in Mandarin Chinese

This article examines two so far understudied verb doubling constructions in Mandarin Chinese, viz., verb doubling clefts and verb doubling lian...dou. We show that these constructions have the same internal syntax as regular clefts and lian...dou sentences, the doubling effect being epiphenomenal; therefore, we classify them as subtypes of the general cleft and lian...dou constructions, respectively, rather than as independent constructions. Additionally, we also show that, as in many other languages with comparable constructions, the two instances of the verb are part of a single movement chain, which has the peculiarity of allowing Spell-Out of more than one link