Zompist Bboard Again

I was wondering what the term is for what seems like a gap or ellipsis in sentences where the head of the subclause is the elided object in the subclause:

I saw the man I hurt [him]
It's that girl I talked about [her]

I seem to recall there's a specific term, but I can't find it.


JAL

AFAICT it's "gapping", per the Wikipedia article on relative clauses.

Vardelm wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:50 pmAFAICT it's "gapping", per the Wikipedia article on relative clauses.

Mmm, I checked that article but only looked at the English, not the formation paragraph. However, I also read the "gapping" article, and what's described there doesn't seem to match what the relative clause article describes ("Gapping usually elides minimally a finite verb and further any non-finite verbs that are present."). I'm confused...


JAL

Chomskyans call it a trace (or t).

Gapping is different; it's the transformation that produces sentences like "Sam liked to hunt pheasant, and Bill, grouse."

I was replying and the board ate my post. Grrr....

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 3:46 pm Chomskyans call it a trace (or t).

Gapping is different; it's the transformation that produces sentences like "Sam liked to hunt pheasant, and Bill, grouse."

I was going to say that yeah, what jal was seeing on the gapping article was referring to omitting a shared verb, rather than a shared noun/pronoun. Yeah, they're technically different, but they're using the same method (removing one instance of a shared sentence constituent) to achieve their ends. I see the term "gapping", or rather a "gapping strategy" or "gap strategy", used to describe the phenomena in relative clauses. (For example, https://wals.info/chapter/123)

I guess based on that I would still call it a "gap". Just don't ask for my academic or professional linguistic qualifications to back that up.

"Gap" has WALS backing it up at least. But I'd put this into the category of "things you're going to have to explain anyway in the grammar", rather than a term everybody knows.

Thanks y'all! Think I'm going with "gap" then.


JAL