In this paper, we approach two interrelated issues – the existence of head movement in Japanese and its proper locus in the grammatical architecture – from the novel perspective of verb-echo answers. Articulating Sato and Hayashi’s (2012) data and observations on verb-echo answers further, we present new evidence showing that this type of answer is best analysed through V-to-T-to-C movement, followed by TP-ellipsis in the phonological component. Then, we develop a new generalization that the otherwise obligatory wide scope of DPs marked by focus-sensitive operators such as dake or disjunction ka with respect to clausemate negation is systematically reversed in the context of verb-echo answers – negative scope reversal - a pattern which cuts across various grammatical positions. This generalization and our analysis thereof, in turn, lend powerful empirical support to the conclusion that head movement involved in this construction is syntactic (Roberts 2010), contrary to the recent conjecture expressed in Chomsky (2001) and other subsequent work that it is essentially a PF phenomenon.