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Copular Clauses, Clefts, and Putative Sluicing in Uzbek

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Vera Gribanova
Vera Gribanova*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
*
Department of Linguistics Stanford University Margaret Jacks Hall, Building 460 Stanford, CA 94305-2150 [gribanov@stanford.edu]
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Extract

This article presents novel data from Uzbek, an under-investigated Turkic language, in support of two claims. The first claim is that, despite superficial appearances, Uzbek sluicing-like constructions are not instantiations of genuine sluicing at all. Instead, they are derived from two possible sources—copular clauses and clefts—by reduction strategies that are shown to be independently available in Uzbek (subject drop and copula drop). This result supports a prediction of Merchant's (2001) theory of sluicing: languages with no left-peripheral WH-movement or focus-movement strategy should not exhibit genuine sluicing. The second claim is that Uzbek cleft structures (which may give rise to the sluicing-like construction under reduction) can be subdivided into two types, corresponding to two prominent lines of analysis in preexisting explorations of clefts (descending from Jespersen 1927 and Jespersen 1937). The results support Pinkham and Hankamer's (1975) claim that both analyses may be applicable to subtly distinct structures within one language.

Keywords

Uzbekcleftextrapositionsluicingexpletivepseudocleft

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 89 , Issue 4 , December 2013, pp. 830 - 882
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

For generously sharing their language and time with me, I thank Feruz Akabirov, Nafisa Alieva, Salo-matkhon Atahanova, Nigora Azimova, Ulug'bek Baymuradov, Nigora Bozorova, Alisher Fayziev, Akbar Ismanjanov, Nizom Kadirov, Oybek Karimjonov, Iroda Komilova, Umid Kurbanov, Jasur Hudoyberdiyev, Erkin Mukhammedov, Rano Nurmatova, Guljahon Uzoqova, Mukaddas Yakubova, and one anonymous speaker. This project benefited greatly from discussions with Jorge Hankamer, Jim McCloskey, Sandra Chung, Maria Polinsky, Alya Asarina, Marcel den Dikken, Judith Fiedler, Itamar Francez, Boris Harizanov, Jeremy Hartman, Jesse Saba Kirchner, Jaklin Kornfilt, Beth Levin, Emily Manetta, Jason Merchant, Line Mikkelsen, Mark Norris, Justin Nuger, Balkız Öztürk, Norvin Richards, Ivan Sag, Andrew Simpson, Anie Thompson, Jeroen van Craenenbroeck, Christos Vlachos, Tom Wasow, John Whitman, and audiences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Stanford, and the Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics (7 and 8). I would like to thank Jason Merchant, Greg Carlson, and three extremely helpful Language referees for their role in making the argumentation in this article stronger and the data more carefully described. I owe a special thanks to the Westminster International University in Tashkent for welcoming me into its community and connecting me with many of the above-mentioned speakers. Fieldwork for this project was funded by the Hellman Faculty Scholar Fund, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. All errors are the author's responsibility.

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