Biblical Hebrew Forum

["C. Stirling Bartholomew" <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>]

On 10/8/04 10:02 AM, "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net> wrote:

> Thus, I tend to reject
> everything he came up with from the development of trace theory down to the
> present time.

Dave,

Do you you employ the notion of empty constituents? For example if a )$r is
functioning as a relative clause marker but there is no explicit antecedent
do you supply a null place holder to mark the position of the "missing"
antecedent and then proceed with your syntax analysis as if this empty
constituent was a real constituent?

I can see some merit in this approach but also one major liability.
Proceeding  as if this empty constituent was a real constituent shuts down
the analysis of the actual text before you supplanting it with a virtual
text. Assuming that the actual text is syntactically well formed, it
behooves us to try and understand it as it is not transform it into a
virtual text that fits our favorite language model.

However, I will admit that supplying an empty constituent can have some
analytical benefits. I do it frequently.


greetings,
Clay Bartholomew