# Slifting

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{{Short description|Grammatical construction where embedded clause is preposed}}
In [linguistics](/source/linguistics), '''slifting''' is a grammatical construction in which the [embedded clause](/source/embedded_clause) of a [propositional attitude](/source/propositional_attitude), speech report, or emotive is preposed. For instance the [English](/source/English_language) sentence ''Nick is a great singer, Sara claims'' is the slifted variant of ''Sarah claims Nick is a great singer''. The concept was first identified and named by [Haj Ross](/source/Haj_Ross) in 1973.<ref name = "koev">{{cite journal |last1=Koev |first1=Todor |year=2021 |title=Parentheticality, assertion strength, and polarity  |url=https://todorkoev.weebly.com/uploads/5/2/5/1/52510397/parentheticality_assertion_strength_and_polarity.pdf |journal= Linguistics and Philosophy |volume=44|pages=113–140 |doi=10.1007/s10988-019-09285-4|s2cid=207910843 }}</ref><ref name= "simons">{{cite journal |last1=Simons |first1=Mandy|year=2007 |title=Observations on embedding verbs, evidentiality, and presupposition|journal=Lingua |volume=117 |issue=6|pages=1034–1056 |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2006.05.006}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Ross |first=John |author-link=Haj Ross |editor-last1=Gross |editor-first1=Maurice | editor-last2=Halle |editor-first2=Morris |editor-last3= Schützenberger|editor-first3=Marcel-Paul |encyclopedia= The formal analysis of natural languages |title=Slifting|year=1973 |publisher=Mouton}}</ref> Slifting is more restricted than other kinds of preposing. Sentences involving slifting are often referred to as ''slifting parentheticals'' since the content of the slifted clause must be at-issue. For instance, the example above is most naturally understood as asserting that Nick is a great singer while parenthetically acknowledging Sara as the source of this information. The examples below show that this interpretation is strong enough to produce [infelicity](/source/felicity_(pragmatics)) when a preceding question establishes a context where the wrong proposition is at-issue.<ref name= "koev" /><ref name= "simons" />

# Q: Why is Freedia not here? <br /> A: She quit, Sara told me. (slifting)
# Q: What did Sara tell you? <br /> A: # She quit, Sara told me.  (slifting)

# Q: Why is Freedia not here? <br /> A: Sara told me she quit. (non-slifting)
# Q: What did Sara tell you? <br /> A: Sara told me she quit. (non-slifting)

Additionally, not all embedding predicates allow slifting.<ref name= "koev" /><ref name= "simons" />

# #She quit, Sara doubts.
# Jame'll be here next week, she emailed me.

Slifted clauses also cannot have an overt [complementizer](/source/complementizer).<ref name= "koev" />

# Q: Why is Freedia not here? <br /> A: # That she quit, Sara claims. (slifting)
# That she quit, Sara told me. That she won the lottery, I only found out later. (non-slifting preoposing)

Moreover, [interrogative](/source/interrogative) instances of slifting show [subject-auxiliary inversion](/source/subject-auxiliary_inversion).<ref name= "koev" />

# Will Freedia report our company's crimes to ESMA, Sara wondered. (slifting)
# Whether Freedia will report our company's crimes to ESMA, I don't know. (non-slifting)

Ross analyzed slifting as the result of a [movement rule](/source/syntactic_movement). However, many subsequent researchers have argued that slifting is fundamentally different from true preposing and that the slifted clause may not be an embedded clause at all. [Semantic](/source/Formal_semantics_(natural_language)) analyses have been proposed which treat slifting as a kind of [evidentiality](/source/evidentiality).<ref name= "koev" /><ref name= "simons" />

==See also==
* [Evidentiality](/source/Evidentiality)
* [Haj Ross](/source/Haj_Ross)
* [Information structure](/source/Information_structure)
* [Inversion (linguistics)](/source/Inversion_(linguistics))
* [Propositional attitude](/source/Propositional_attitude)

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

{{Formal semantics}}

Category:Semantics
Category:Pragmatics
Category:Syntactic entities
Category:Syntactic transformation

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