Re: USAGE: Garden paths

John Cowan wrote:

> J Matthew Pearson wrote:
>
> > Compare:
> >
> >   He filed the papers without reading them.
> >   Which papers did he file __ without reading __ ?
> >
> > I'm not so fond of parasitic gaps in questions, but I think they're
> > just fine in relative clauses:
> >
> >   I need to see the papers [which he filed __ without reading __]
>
> Perhaps your intuition is because
>
> 1)      Which papers did he file without reading them?
>
> seems less ungrammatical (as it were) than
>
> 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.

Matt.