<p>Mandarin pseudo <i>why</i>-stripping constructions differ from <i>why</i>-stripping constructions in English in that some of the focused constituents appearing after the <i>wh</i>-phrase <i>weishenme</i> ‘why’ need to be immediately preceded by <i>shi</i>, while some others do not. The fact that <i>shi</i> is present in this type of construction seems to suggest that Mandarin pseudo <i>why</i>-stripping constructions are derivationally related to sentence-initial <i>shi</i> sentences. However, this correlation is not supported by empirical data and theoretical considerations. In addition, I argue that unlike their English counterparts, applying the movement and ellipsis approach to Mandarin pseudo <i>why</i>-stripping sentences is not tenable, either. Thus, I propose that they should be analyzed as a sequence of the <i>wh</i>-phrase <i>weishenme</i> ‘why’, an empty category <i>pro</i> followed by the copular verb or the emphatic marker <i>shi</i>, and the focused constituent. This analysis amounts to saying that Mandarin pseudo <i>why</i>-stripping sentences should be analyzed parallelly to pseudo-sluicing constructions, which is evidenced by the fact that cross-linguistically <i>why</i>-stripping and sluicing constructions in English and Japanese are analyzed in a similar way.</p>