While it is standardly assumed that languages without articles have a null D, Bošković (2008, 2012) claims that article-less languages such as Mandarin lack DP. This paper provides an analysis of the split partitivity (SP) and external possession (EP) phenomena in Mandarin that crucially assumes the existence and phasehood of DP. Specifically, I will argue that SP involves subextraction via (the outermost) Spec, DP, which follows if DP is a phase. EP involves possessor raising from Spec, possessum DP; the possessor must precede the possessum throughout the derivation, which, again, follows if DP is a phase. Then, I will examine the free ordering of noun modifiers and the binding facts that Bošković and Hsieh (2013, 2015) take to indicate the lack of DP in Mandarin, and argue that they do not make a convincing case for their claim. Thus, I conclude that the DP hypothesis should be maintained for Mandarin.
