My research focuses on syntax and semantics, with an emphasis on empirical investigation of the so-called Altaic languages (e.g., Turkic, Mongolic, Korean). I place particular emphasis on careful elicitation and systematic data collection especially for Turkish and on grounding theoretical claims in well-documented linguistic evidence. More broadly, I approach linguistic theory through cross-linguistic comparison, with the goal of developing analyses informed by the diversity of natural languages.
Below you can find a summary of my research projects. See my CV for a complete list of publications and presentations.
Case
A central theme of my syntactic research concerns how grammatical case is assigned and how reliably case marking diagnoses syntactic structure. When a case pattern deviates from expectations, does this indicate a different underlying structure, or can the deviation arise from interactions within the grammatical derivation itself? I investigate a range of constructions to address this question using diagnostics that do not rely on case marking alone.
Output
- (upcoming). Kiper, Yağmur. Two distinct mechanisms for genitive case across nominalizations. Talk at the Syntax & Semantics Circle (SSCircle), University of California, Berkeley.
- (2025). Kiper, Yağmur. Ellipsis as leverage for dependent case. Talk at the 56th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 56), New York University, New York. [handout]
Ellipsis
A major strand of my work focuses on ellipsis, especially sluicing-like constructions and verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) in Turkish, Khalkha Mongolian, and Korean. Because ellipsis involves meaning that is interpreted despite missing material, it provides a powerful window into underlying syntactic structure. I investigate how these constructions vary across languages and what this variation reveals about the mechanisms that license ellipsis.
Output
- (2025). Kiper, Yağmur. Low sluicing is VPE. Talk at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), Philadelphia. [handout]
- (2022). Kiper, S. Yağmur. The position of the Q-like particle ki in Turkish and consequences for sluicing. In Marianne Huijsmans & Sander Nederveen (eds.), Proceedings of the Northwest Linguistics Conference 37. Vancouver, BC: UBCWPL. [paper]
- (2021). Kiper, S. Yağmur. (Mis)matches in Turkish sluicing constructions. Short talk at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP), Université de Paris, online.
- (2020). Kiper, S. Yağmur. In the case of sluicing. Master of Arts Thesis, Middle East Technical University. OpenMETU. [thesis]
Clausal Architecture
Another line of my research examines clausal architecture in Turkish, particularly constructions that blur the boundary between clauses and nominals. I study pseudo-clefts and related structures, examining the restrictions on cleft clauses and the role of (light-headed or free) relative clauses in licensing pivots. I also investigate Turkish nominalizations, exploring how nominal and clausal nominalizations differ structurally and how they relate to relative clause formation.
Evidentiality, Modality, and Aspect
The semantic system underlying aspect, modality, and evidentiality in Turkish remains considerably less studied than its syntax. My work contributes to this area by investigating how markers such as the so-called aorist and the imperfective interact with modal interpretation and types of evidence, as well as how perfect-like meanings arise.
Output
- (upcoming). Kiper, Yağmur & Knick, Emily. Perfect-like meanings in Turkish via temporal adverbials. Poster at the 11th Workshop on Turkic and Languages in Contact with Turkic (Tu+11), MIT, Boston.
Attitude Reports
Attitude reports provide another domain for my semantic research. I examine verbs such as know and think in Turkish and Khalkha Mongolian, focusing on how they interact with embedded questions and wh-scope. I also contribute to an ongoing project led by Rachel Dudley on children’s understanding of factivity in Turkish, supporting corpus analysis and theoretical work on how input with factive verbs relates to the acquisition of belief and knowledge verbs.