Re: USAGE: Garden paths

J Matthew Pearson wrote:

> > 2)      I need to see the papers which he filed without reading them.
> >
> > The "them" in 2 seems clearly an ungrammatical resumptive pronoun, whereas
> > the "them" in 1 seems merely pleonastic.
>
> "Them" is not a resumptive pronoun in (2), as there's a real gap (after "filed")
> corresponding to the wh-word "which".  But perhaps it 'feels' a bit like a
> resumptive pronoun, hence my wish to leave it out.
Well, call it resumptive or not, it's plainly ungrammatical in the same
(surface-level) way that resumptive pronouns are.

--

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
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