Evidentiality in Uzbek and Kazakh

 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
Four of the most interesting people I know also happen to be the members of my 
committee: Victor Friedman, Salikoko Mufwene, Lenore Grenoble, and Kağan Arık. I 
have been fortunate to work with them on this present work and throughout my career at 
the University of Chicago. Victor Friedman was the first to suggest that I look at 
evidentiality in Uzbek and Kazakh, and with his guidance and the resource of his many 
publications, this dissertation became what it is now. Salikoko Mufwene has been an 
amazing source of support from the very beginning. He is responsible for my admission 
and my continued stay in the Linguistics department, and has always been willing to 
work with me on topics close to and distant from his fields of expertise. Lenore 
Grenoble’s knowledge of field methods and of the former Soviet Union have greatly 
aided me in the course of collecting data and traveling to Kazakhstan, and her experience 
in discourse and other higher order components of grammar have improved not only my 
analysis, but my writing as well. Last, but certainly not least, Kağan Arık has been a 
friend and advisor, and taught me Uzbek and Kazakh. Thanks to my advisors’ broad 
range of knowledge and experience, and their patience and their understanding, I have 
improved as a linguist, and I hope that this work reflects their guidance and advice. 
A number of other professors at the University of Chicago have supported me 
throughout my career and in the writing of this dissertation. To Jerry Sadock, Alan Yu, 
Chris Kennedy, Amy Dahlstrom, John Goldsmith, and Anastasia Giannakidou I am 
extremely grateful. Also deserving of many thanks is department secretary Vanessa 
Wright. 

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Financial support for this work comes from the Whiting Foundation and the 
Division of Humanities and the University of Chicago. Many thanks to the Division staff 
who have been so helpful along the way. 
My fellow students have been another constant source of support, whether as 
friends, advisors, or fellow writing group members. Some of the best times I’ve had were 
involved in the organization the 42
nd
Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 
with Jackie Bunting, Sapna Desai, Robert Peachy, and Zuzana Tomková.
For almost the entire time that I was at the University of Chicago, I was employed 
at the Regenstein Library finding lost books. Everyone in the Bookstacks Department 
and the Access Services Division has been incredible supportive of my academic goals 
and tolerant of my constant schedule changes and travels. 
I have had the benefit of working with a number of native speakers, not only of 
Uzbek and Kazakh, but of other Turkic languages. Many thanks are due to Bill Fierman 
(Indiana) for his assistance in finding Uzbek speakers. Thanks are also due to Dana 
Akanova and her family and Askar Boranbayev and his family for their assistance in my 
travels in Kazakhstan and assistance with the Kazakh language, and to Akram 
Khabibullaev (Uzbek), Yana Petrova Kumar (Sakha), and all the anonymous online 
contacts. Raxmat! Рақмет! Махтал! Teşekkürler! Without the help of these consultants, 
this work would not have been possible. 
My family has been supportive in so many ways, and without them none of this 
would have been possible. I would like to thank my parents, Mark and Christine 
Straughn, my brother Alex and his wife Meagan, my grandparents Don and Peggy 

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Straughn and Pete and Joan Gould, and the many other members of my family who have 
encouraged me in the course of my studies. 

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