ABSTRACT OF THESIS EXPLORING CLEFT SENTENCES AND OTHER ASPECTS OF SHUGHNI SYNTAX Shughni, an under-documented language spoken in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, exhibits most syntactic constructions without deep-to-surface-level

OF THESIS EXPLORING CLEFT SENTENCES AND OTHER ASPECTS OF SHUGHNI SYNTAX Shughni, an under-documented language spoken in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, exhibits most syntactic constructions without deep-to-surface-level transformations, thus creating utterances (including questions) in-situ. However, a unique sentence type—the cleft construction—utilizes movement to front an element that receives primary focus. These Shughni clefts are analogous to the English constructions like ―It is the man whom I saw,‖ derived from the simple declarative statement ―I saw the man.‖ This paper discusses the parameters within which these clefts can occur and posits a unified explanation for the presence of these anomalous sentences in a language that resists movement. Moreover, this sentence pattern in Shughni is falling out of use among speakers of the younger generation, as the language continues to drift toward a system completely lacking in movement; therefore, preservation of this form, which seems to be special in its kind among the world‘s languages, is all the more urgent.