eto - query

[Moshe Taube]

Dear SEELANGERS
I saw a claim recently, in a paper on Yiddish, that Russian sentences
focused by eto are ungrammatical when embedded.
Thus: Eto Sasha uvidel Mashu. It is Sasha that saw Masha.
but allegedly
*Ja znaju shto eto Sasha uvidel Mashu. I know that it is Sasha that saw Masha.
I feel that this is not so, but, not being a native speaker, I would like
to hear the opinion of native speakers of Russian. Also, if anyone can
point to some nice counterexamples from written language, literature, press
etc. Finally, the most recent treatment of this in Russian that I read is
Paducheva,  Znachenie i sintakticheskie funkcii slova eto, in Problemy
strukturnoj lingvistiki 1980, 76-91. I'm sure there must be more recent
work on this, and I'd be grateful for any reference.
Many thanks
Moshe Taube

Moshe Taube
DeptMoshe TaubeM

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