Relative clauses: wh vs that

[Yehuda N. Falk]

Joan's response to Dick concerning TOPIC and relative clauses brings me
back to one of my original questions concerning relative clauses. Joan
distinguishes between relative clauses with a wh relative pronoun and those
without, contrasting (i) and (ii).

(i)   Everything that there was in the garden was beautiful.
(ii)??Everything which there was in the garden was beautiful.

Joan argues that the reason that (ii) is (relatively) bad is that the
relative pronoun is TOPIC.

My question: what is the analysis of (i)? THAT relatives also involve long
distance dependency constructions (they also obey island conditions, and
they must have a clause internal gap), so what is the function that binds
the gap in a THAT relative like (i)?

Yehuda