Chapter 3 - Basic Concepts of Syntactic Theoryas the moved element. The main way in which the trace differs from the moved
element is that the trace has no phonological content and hence is unpronounced. We
have already considered the possibility of phonologically empty but grammatically
active elements when we discussed imperatives at the beginning of this chapter. A
trace is another such element.
Traces are typically represented by a t, which bears an index which it shares with
the moved element, both to link the trace and the moved element and to demonstrate
that they have the same reference:
(97) a who 1 did Susan say [Fred helped t 1 ]
b who 1 did Susan say [t 1 helped Fred]
The S-structure representations here demonstrate the movement of an interrogative
pronoun from two different D-structure positions, marked by the trace. In (97a) who
moved from object position and hence the sentence is interpreted as a question about
the one who was helped. In (97b) on the other hand who moves from the subject
position and hence the question is about the one who does the helping.
There are two views concerning the nature of traces. One is that a trace is related to
but independent of the moved element. From this point of view a trace is a little like a
pronoun referring to the moved element:
(98) a Charles 1 was cheated t 1
b Harry 1 helped himself 1
In these examples, the trace and the pronoun sit in object positions and refer to the
subject in much the same way. From this perspective, the trace can be seen as having
properties of its own independent of the moved element. We will see that there is some
truth to this idea. However, traces are not like pronouns in one important way. As we
see in (98b), the pronoun and its antecedent represent two different arguments, though
they both refer to the same individual. Thus Harry is interpreted as the one who does
the helping and himself is interpreted as the one who gets helped. With the trace in
(98b) however, there is only one argument interpreted here: the one who was cheated.
Because the verb is passivised, the subject’s -role is not present and so no element is
interpreted as agent. Thus, it is as though the trace and the moved element share the
same -role, which strictly speaking should not be possible due to the Theta Criterion.
From this perspective, the trace and the moved element seem to be interpreted as a
single element, capable of bearing a single -role. This single element is, however,
spread out across a number of positions in a structure.
The notion of a chain might be useful here. We can see a moved element and its
associated traces as a single object made up of several parts: like a single chain is
made up from different links. Extending this analogy further, we can then refer to the
different parts of a movement chain as the links of the chain. Thus, the movement in
(99a) can be said to contain the chain represented in (99b):
(99) a this sentence 1 , you might not have seen t 1 before
b [this sentence 1 , t 1 ]
This chain has two links: this sentence and the trace. We say that the moved element is
at the head of the chain, while the trace is at its foot.