trace pronoun

[sagehen]

>The following seems unnatural to me because the pronoun HIM has not been
>deleted:
>
>FORT BRAGG -- A national organization that fights for the rights of
>homosexual service members has come to the defense of a Fort Bragg soldier
>whose superiors refuse to let him resign. [Associated Press, Durham, NC,
>HERALD, 2/16/02, B1]
>
>Do YOU have an obligatory object deletion in this syntactic environment?
~~~~~~~~~
I don't.  I think HIM is the subject of [to] resign.  OTOH it _may_ be omitted.

If "...whose superiors are acting against him" is acceptable, I don't see
that the other isn't.
A. Murie


A&M Murie
N. Bangor NY
sagehen at westelcom.com