This paper examines apparent cases of sluicing in Japanese and concludes that these do not instantiate sluicing as found in English, but rather a kind of reduced cleft in which the pivot is a wh-phrase. An attempt to extend this analysis to English sluicing is shown to encounter severe difficulties. Finally, the structure of the cleft in English is considered, where it is argued that the cleft is a CP complement to be with the pivot adjoined; a number of correct predictions are shown to follow from this analysis.