"parasitic gap"的定义和意义

What is a "parasitic gap"?

A parasitic gap is a linguistic phenomenon where a gap, which indicates the absence of a word or phrase, is created in a sentence while another gap is already present. This second gap is considered "parasitic" because it relies on the first gap for its interpretation, often occurring in complex sentences with embedded clauses. For example, "He criticized the movie without really watching it," the transformation to a question would result in "What movie did he criticize _ without watching _?" Here, the first gap occurs after "criticize," while the second gap is introduced by the phrase "without watching." The interpretation of the second gap depends on the first, allowing the listener to infer the missing information. Understanding parasitic gaps is important for analyzing syntactic structures and how information is conveyed in complex sentences.