According to Chomsky, that is because a phrase referring to the boy really does occur after accused in deep structure; it has been moved backwards to the position of that by a transformation, leaving behind a silent “trace.” A person trying to understand the sentence must undo the effect of the transformation and mentally put a copy of the phrase back in the position of the trace. To do so, the understander must first notice, while at the beginning of the sentence, that there is a moved phrase, the boy, that needs a home. The understander must hold the phrase in short-term memory until he or
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