ABSTRACT
Following Ross (1967/1986) many linguists have assumed that sentence pairs like (1)–(4) are related by a rule of “Heavy NP Shift”:
Mary gave everything that he demanded to John.
Mary gave to John everything that he demanded.
Max put all the boxes of home furnishings in his car.
Max put in his car all the boxes of home furnishings.
I would consider anyone who leaves his doors unlocked foolish.
I would consider foolish anyone who leaves his doors unlocked.
You see large numbers of Dr. Who fans at such conventions.
You see at such conventions large numbers of Dr. Who fans.
In essence, this rule derives the second member of each pair from the first by rightward movement of a phonologically “heavy” noun phrase: https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203429204/f1b479a4-8b04-46ce-b73e-8e9a679de9f0/content/fig0393_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>