Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Moon-Ryul Jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

Dear Dave:

You wrote:

In Hebrew, if we leave the 
preposition where it is then it has to attach to something, hence 

(7) HABBAYIT ):A$ER HF)IY$ BOW (the house which the man (is) 
in it)

but not

(8) * HABBAYIT ):A$ER HF)IY$ B:

However, it seems to me that if trace theory is correct, we should 
never see constructions like HABBAYIT ):A$ER HF)IY$ BOW 
because they would be inherently ungrammatical. Yet it's a 
perfectly good structure in BH. 

........

In any case, the resumptive phenomenon in Hebrew makes me 
question whether trace theory is on the right track.

**** 

 I think trace theory correctly predicts how English relative
  pronouns behave. If ):A$ER does not respect trace theory,
  then either trace theory is wrong or ):A$ER is not a relative
  pronoun moved out of the subordinate clause. You seem to 
  believe that ):A$ER is a relative pronoun moved out of the 
  modifying clause, but it does not respect trace theory and so
  there may be something wrong with trace theory. 
  But for me the fact that ):A$ER does not respect trace theory
  means that it is not a relative pronoun and it is not a moved 
  element.  

Moon
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Soongsil University,
Seoul, Korea