Corpus Pragmatics and Prosody Lab

(CPP Lab)

Simon Fraser University, Department of Linguistics

Some answers to some Questions Under Discussion in the CPP Lab:

A 1-minute Youtube video-clip from a V-NYI talk in December 2023 showing the culmination of the answer by David Pesetsky to a question from Nancy Hedberg.

A 1-minute Youtube video-clip from a V-NYI talk in January 2023 showing the culmination of the answer by Gillian Ramchand to a question from Patricia Schneider-Zioga.

Some recent research outputs of the CPP Lab:

Hedberg, Nancy, Teresita Garduno, Emrah Görgülü, Monica-Alexandrina Irimia, Patricia Schneider-Zioga, Juan Manuel Sosa, Keith Tse, and Yifang Yuan. 2023. “On the differential use of subtypes of English clefts in dialogue.” Proceedings of the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association. (Submitted paper)

Hedberg, Nancy, Micaela Bilot, Teresita Garduno, Emrah Görgülü, Monica-Alexandrina Irimia, Patricia Schneider-Zioga, Juan Manuel Sosa, and Yifang Yuan. 2023. “On the differential use of subtypes of English clefts in dialogue.” Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association. York University, Toronto, 31 May–2 June 2023,  (Abstract) (Poster) (Powerpoint slides with soundfiles

Linguistics Blitz Talk, “Introducing the CPP Lab”, Simon Fraser University, 16 June 2022. (Slides)

The Corpus Pragmatics and Prosody Lab (CPP Lab) investigates relationships between particular aspects of the syntactic, morphological and phonological form of linguistic expressions and constructions and particular aspects of their semantic meaning, pragmatic use, and prosodic pronunciation in extended spoken and written natural discourse.

In short: Corpus-based study of information structure in extended natural discourse.

Expression types currently under study include:  clefts, pseudoclefts, reverse pseudoclefts, simple copula constructions; question intonation, question-response pairing, linguistic realization of other speech acts; global discourse structure, oral paragraphs, discourse-markers, discourse-motivated syntactic constructions: preposing/postposing, left/right dislocations, scrambling, and prosody; demonstratives/articles/pronouns, gender/number/person marking; tense/aspect/
modality/evidentiality, case and agreement (anti-agreement, differential argument, marking); parentheticals.

Language families under study include:  Germanic, Romance, Greek, Bantu, Chinese, Japanese, Mayan, Salish, Turkish, Persian, Tagalog, Russian, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic

Analytical frameworks include: Generative syntax, compositional semantics, discourse semantics, autosegmental-metrical phonology, Gricean and Post-Gricean pragmatics.

Current funding includes: Dialogue Functions of Syntactic Constructions(SFU Small SSHRC Grant, 2022-2024).

Director and Co-Director:

Nancy Hedberg, Director, Professor, SFU, Linguistics and Cognitive Science,  ResearchGate, departmental website

Patricia Schneider-Zioga, Co-Director, Professor, Linguistics, California State University, Fullerton, USA, ResearchGate, departmental website

Lab Manager:

Yifang Yuan, CPP Lab Graduate Research Assistant. 2019 UBC MA thesis: “Response markers in Mandarin Chinese conversation: A corpus-based case study of shi, dui, xing, hao and the variants of shi.” SFU Linguistics PhD thesis in progress: “Asking questions in context: An elicitation study of questions in Mandarin Chinese conversation.”

Currently active members (research assistants and volunteers):

Teresita Garduno, BA student, SFU, Majors in Linguistics Psychology/Minor in Learning & Developmental Disabilities; CPP Lab Linguistics Department Undergraduate Research Assistant, Spring 2022. CPP Lab volunteer since Summer 2022.

Emrah Görgülü, Associate Professor, Linguistics, Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Turkey; 2012 SFU PhD thesis: “Semantics of  nouns and the specification of number in Turkish”; Research Assistant on 2007-2011 SSHRC Standard Research Grant: “The prosody of sentence type and information structure in North American English.” ResearchGate.

Monica Alexandrina Irimia, Associate Professor, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, Linguistics. ResearchGate

Juan Manuel Sosa, Associate Professor, retired, SFU. Co-investigator on 2007-2011 SSHRC Standard Research Grant: “The prosody of sentence type and information structure in North American English.” ResearchGate, departmental website.

Keith Tse, Postdoctoral Researcher; University of Lancaster/York/Ronin Institute/IGDORE.  PhD Linguistics, University of York, UK. ResearchGate.  Ronin Institute website.

Previously active members + friends of the lab:

Micaela Bilot, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics; CPP Lab Linguistics Department Undergraduate Research Assistant, Spring 2023, coauthor on 2023 CLA poster.

Nicole Dehé, Professor, Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Germany. Visited SFU from May-July 2019 and in March 2020. Research website.

Zack Gilkison, currently PhD student, SFU, Linguistics, working on Hul’q’umi’num’ Text Corpus. SFU 2020 MA thesis on “Quotation in Hul’q’umi’num’ Performance.” CPP Lab Co-Manager, 2021-2022. Coauthor on Speech Prosody paper draft (August-December 2022) Seconded to work on Hul’q’um’in’um Language projects.

Alex Hamo, currently PhD student, University of Pennsylvania, Linguistics. 2021 MA thesis on “Partitives and differential marking in Eastern Armenian,” California State University, Fullerton.

Johannes Heim, Lecturer, University of Aberdeen, School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture. Professional website.  PhD 2019, University of British Columbia. Commitment and Engagement: The role of intonation in deriving speech acts.

Alissa Hewton, currently in UBC MSc program, Speech Pathology. SFU 2023 BA, Extended Minor in Linguistics/Major in Psychology CPP Lab volunteer 2021-2022. Seconded to work on Hul’q’um’in’um Language projects.

Rohan Ben Joseph, BSc student, SFU, Joint Major in Linguistic and Computing Science. CPP Lab volunteer 2021-2022. Coauthor on Speech Prosody paper draft (August-December 2022).

Boey Kwan, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics; CPP Lab Linguistics Department Undergraduate Research Assistant, Fall 2021. Coauthor on Speech Prosody paper draft (August-December 2022). Seconded to work on Hul’q’um’in’um Language projects.

Morgan Mameni, currently Technical Architect, Salesforce. SFU 2011 MA thesis: “Epistemic implicature and inquisitive bias: A multidimensional semantics for polar interrogatives” (Persian). Research Assistant on 2007-2011 SSHRC Standard Research Grant: “The prosody of sentence type and information structure in North American English.”

Allegra Simionato, currently Communication Officer, tourism industry, Northwest Territories. SFU 2022 BA, Major in Linguistics/Minor in Kinesiology. CPP Lab volunteer 2021-2022. Coauthor on Speech Prosody paper draft (August-December 2022). Seconded to work on Hul’q’um’in’um Language projects.

Samuel To, currently in UBC MSc program in Audiology.  SFU 2023 BA, Major in Linguistics/Minor in Psychology; CPP Lab volunteer 2021-2022. Coauthor on Speech Prosody paper draft (August-December 2022). Shifted focus to Language and Brain Lab.

Helen Zhang, currently with First People’s Heritage, Language and Cultural Council, British Columbia. SFU 2023 MA thesis: “Creating an online Hul’q’umi’num dictionary for teachers and learners.” Seconded to work on Hul’q’um’in’um Language projects.

ANYONE WISHING TO GET (FURTHER) INVOLVED, PLEASE EMAIL hedberg@sfu.ca

Memberships and Participations include:

Association of Contemporary African Linguistics: ACAL 55: McGill University, Montreal, May 2-4, 2024.

Canadian Linguistics Association: ACL/CLA 2024: Carleton University, June 17-19, 2024

Crete Summer Schools of Linguistics: CreteLing 2024: Rethymnon, Crete, July 13-26, 2024

Generative Linguists in the Old World: GLOW: GLOWing Lecture Series: David Adger on Syntax, May 16, 2024

Linguistic Society of America: LSA

LISTEN Network

The NYI Global Institute of Cultural, Cognitive, and Linguistic Studies: Virtual NYI #9: June 27-July 12, 2024

Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA)

Speech Prosody Special Interest Group: Speech Prosody 2024, Leiden University, July 2-5, 2024