"Yaome XP yaome YP is often translated into English as "either XP or YP". Both allow a disjunctive interpretation when they occur in a sentence. This similarity, however, ends there. First, there are restrictions on the types of syntactic phrases that the paired yaome conjoins while either or is free to conjoin phrases of di21B5erent types in English. In particular, yaome does not conjoin nominal phrases while either or doesn't exhibit such a restriction. This asymmetry (namely the asymmetry that yaome doesn't conjoin DPs, while either or does) shows an interesting phenomenon, specifically the sentence 'Either John hit Bill or Mary' is ambiguous in English but not in Mandarin. Second, the paired yaome and either or di21B5er in their placement in environments that licenses Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). Particularly, paired yaome doesn't occur in the scope of negation, in interrogatives and in the antecedent clause of conditionals, while either or occurs in these environments. This behavior of yaome indicates that it is a Positive Polarity Item and therefore must escape from environments that license NPIs."--Page ii.
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