Languages of the Caucasus

Georgian and Svan exhibit a construction similar to classical sluicing: that is, translational analogs are grammatical of sentences like ‘Mary cooked something, but I don’t know what’. I provide a description of these phenomena and show that this construction in both languages satisfies standard tests for sluicing. I show that wh-movement in Georgian targets a lower position than in, say, English, namely, Spec FocP. Accordingly, I argue that the account developed in Toosarvandani (2008) for Persian and Van Craenenbroeck & Lipták (2006, 2013) for Hungarian is applicable in this case as well. Specifically, sluicing-like constructions in Georgian are derived by movement of wh-phrases into this position and subsequent deletion of the complement of the FocP. The syntax of the Svan counterpart of this construction differs in some crucial aspects and its analysis is yet to be obtained.