This paper uses low sluicing in Turkish as a diagnostic for the timing of ellipsis licensing and structural case assignment. In low sluicing, wh-remnants bear case, auxiliary and tense morphology, but structural cases such as accusative and genitive fail to survive the ellipsis, even though they are present on the correlate in the antecedent clause. I argue that this disconnectivity cannot be reduced to a copular clause source: low sluicing allows multiple wh-remnants and adjunct remnants, and it is island-sensitive. Instead, I propose that low sluicing has a full clausal source, but that the ellipsis-licensing head renders its complement inaccessible for later case computation. Under a dependent case approach, this prevents wh-remnants from entering the configurational relations required for accusative or genitive case assignment, causing them to surface with unmarked nominative case. The analysis shows that ellipsis licensing can affect syntactic computation and provides new evidence for a configurational theory of structural case.

The paper revises the distribution of the so-called Q-like particle ki in Turkish and investigates the consequences of this revised distribution for embedded sluicing constructions. Contrary to the claim that ki appears only in matrix clauses (Ince, 2012; Zidani-Eroğlu, 2019), I show that it can also occur in embedded interrogative clauses when they are tensed. Based on this possibility, I propose an analysis of sluicing constructions in Turkish, where I argue that wh-remnants in embedded sluicing environments raise to the [Spec CP] position of the closest tensed clause (contra Ince, 2012).

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This thesis explores sluicing like constructions (SLCs) in Turkish. SLCs are investigated from a particular perspective: that of case connectivity between the wh-phrase in the ellipsis site (wh-remnant) and the indefinite pronoun in the antecedent clause (indefinite correlate). Case connectivity refers to the wh-remnant sharing the morphological case of its correlate, while anti-connectivity refers to the wh-remnant surfacing bare, regardless of the form of the correlate. The thesis's purpose is twofold: It aims to provide empirical data regarding which SLCs are indeed well-formed in Turkish (given controversial judgments in the literature) and to offer an appropriate analysis of SLCs compatible with the findings. Based on the judgments collected through an Acceptability Judgment Task from 216 participants, I establish that connectivity and anti-connectivity in all grammatical cases between the wh-phrase and its correlate are acceptable except when accusative object wh-remnants or genitive subject wh-remnants are affixed by a tense marker. To account for all conditions, I propose unified accounts for matrix clause and embedded clause sluicing by adopting a movement-and-deletion analysis for case connectivity and the pro-form analysis for anti-connectivity between the remnant and its correlate. I also argue that the question particle ki can occur not only in matrix interrogative clauses, but also in tensed embedded interrogative environments clause-finally. Due to this distribution of the particle ki, I propose that the pre-sluice can transform from a non-finite to a finite clause, and that the source of the sluice must be the minimal tensed clause where wh-phrase originates. In cases where a bigger source is forced, it must be as minimal as possible.

This edited volume collects work from WCCFL 41, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in May 2023. The publisher provides free online access to the individual contributions.