An empty position which does not result directly from a movement transformation but which is licensed secondarily by another transformation that does not itself affect the parasitic gap. Thus in the following ungrammatical sentence, the gap denoted by...

// n. A gap whose antecedent is identical to that of a second gap occurring in the same sentence, and which could not occur in the absence of that second gap. In the following examples, the parasitic gap is denoted by the symbol ep: What articles did...

In grammar, a parasitic gap is a construction wherein the dropping of a verb's argument is dependent on a co-referential argument having been moved in a preceding context. An English example...