Tarbiat Modares University Language Related Research 2322-3081 17 4 2027 01 21 Copular Verbs Typology in Khalaj Copular Verbs Typology in Khalaj 293 329 23985 10.48311/lrr.2025.23985 FA Pooneh Mostafavi Associate professor, Research Center for Linguistics, Inscriptions and Texts, Research Institue for Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Tehran, Iran 0000-0002-0958-9240 Journal Article 2025 09 16 In the present study, the encoding of copular verbs in predicative and locative/existential clauses in the Khalaj language is investigated within a typological framework. Khalaj is a Turkic language spoken in several villages of Qom and Markazi provinces in Iran. The research corpus consists of 480 sentences and two samples of spontaneous speech. The data were drawn partly from the Khalaj materials available in the Iran Linguistic Atlas and partly from a researcher-designed questionnaire.The results of the data analysis indicate that Khalaj employs two strategies for encoding copular verbs in predicative and locative/existential clauses, namely a “<strong>split</strong>” strategy and a “<strong>shared</strong>” strategy. These strategies reflect variation in the formal realization of copular verbs, whereby speakers use both identical and distinct forms across different clause types. From a typological perspective, Khalaj is an SOV (verb-final) language, and in copular constructions the predicate typically precedes the copular element, following a predicate–copula order. In the present study, the encoding of copular verbs in predicative and locative/existential clauses in the Khalaj language is investigated within a typological framework. Khalaj is a Turkic language spoken in several villages of Qom and Markazi provinces in Iran. The research corpus consists of 480 sentences and two samples of spontaneous speech. The data were drawn partly from the Khalaj materials available in the Iran Linguistic Atlas and partly from a researcher-designed questionnaire.The results of the data analysis indicate that Khalaj employs two strategies for encoding copular verbs in predicative and locative/existential clauses, namely a “<strong>split</strong>” strategy and a “<strong>shared</strong>” strategy. These strategies reflect variation in the formal realization of copular verbs, whereby speakers use both identical and distinct forms across different clause types. From a typological perspective, Khalaj is an SOV (verb-final) language, and in copular constructions the predicate typically precedes the copular element, following a predicate–copula order. https://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article_23985_17f5185b19985f0cf7188661e54814f6.pdf