Corpus Pragmatics and Prosody Lab
[website under development/To be improved]

Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University

 

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: 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, Associate 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):

Micaela Bilot, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics; CPP Lab Linguistics Department Undergraduate Research Assistant, spring 2023.

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

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 Graduate Research Assistant, 2021. ResearchGate

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 2007-2011 on SSHRC-funded project on “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 Mañuel Sosa, Visiting Professor, Linguistics, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, ResearchGate, departmental website; Associate Professor, retired, SFU. Coinvestigator 2007-2011on SSHRC-funded project on “The prosody of sentence type and information structure in North American English

Keith Tse, Postdoctoral Researcher; PhD Linguistics, University of York, UK. ResearchGate.

Helen Zhang, currently MA student, SFU, Linguistics, thesis title: “Creating an online Hul’q’umi’num dictionary for teachers and learners”

 

Occasionally active members/research affiliates/friends of the lab:

Jade Boiser, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics

Tristanio Coppola, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics, Minor in Italian Studies/TESL Certificate.

Nicole Dehé, Professor, University of Konstanz, Germany, Linguistics, ResearchGate, departmental website

Noureddine Elouazizi, currently Strategist, Teaching and Learning Technologies, Faculty of Science, University of British Columbia. SFU 2020 PhD thesis on “The formal syntax for licensing parenthetical verb clauses,” (Moroccan Arabic).   ResearchGate

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

Alissa Hewton, BA student, SFU, Extended Minor in Linguistics/Major in Psychology

Rohan Ben Joseph, BSc student, SFU, Joint Major in Linguistics and Computing Science

Boey Kwan, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics; CPP Lab Linguistics Department Undergraduate Research Assistant, Fall 2021.

Morgan Mameni. Artist. 2014-2022, Director of Research Intelligence, SFU, Office of the Vice President, Research and International, SFU 2011 MA thesis on “Epistemic implicature and inquisitive bias: A multidimensional semantics for polar interrogatives” (Persian). Research Assistant 2009-2011 on SSHRC-funded project on “The prosody of sentence type and information structure in North American English

Nikita Nechayev, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics

Chelsea Riebesehl McGarvie, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics/Minors in Gerontology and History/Certificate in German

Allegra Simionato, currently communication officer, tourism industry, Northwest Territories. SFU 2022 BA graduate, Major in Linguistics/Minor in Kinesiology

Samuel To, BA student, SFU, Major in Linguistics/Minor in Psychology; CPP Lab volunteer since fall semester 2021.

Justin Yan, BSc student, SFU, Major in Computing Science, Minor in Cognitive Science

 

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

 

 

Memberships:
LISTEN Network

Speech Prosody Special Interest Group

Association Canadienne de Linguistique/Canadian Linguistics Association

Linguistic Society of America

Society for the Indigenous Languages of the Americas