Corpus Pragmatics and Prosody Lab

(CPP Lab)

Simon Fraser University, Department of Linguistics

Some recent and forthcoming research outputs of the CPP Lab:

Hedberg, Nancy, Teresita Garduno, Emrah Görgülü, Monica-Alexandrina Irimia, Patricia Schneider-Zioga, Juan Manuel Sosa, and Yifang Yuan. 2024. “The meaning of non-canonical question intonation in English.” Paper to be presented at Western Conference on Linguistics meeting (WECOL 2024). California State University, Fresno, California, November 16-17, 2024. (Abstract)

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, Slavic, Greek, Bantu, Chinese, Japanese, Mayan, Salish, Turkish, Persian, Thai, Tagalog, Hebrew, Arabic

Analytical frameworks include: Generative syntax, Formal 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, 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, Post-Baccalaureate Diploma student, Education, SFU. 2024 SFU BA, Majors in Linguistics and Psychology/Minor in Learning & Developmental Disabilities; CPP Lab 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.

Jennifer Wong, Post-Baccalaureate student, Linguistics, SFU: Certificate in the Linguistics of Speech Sciences. 2024 SFU BSc, Health Sciences. CPP Lab volunteer since September 2024.

 

Previously active members + friends of the lab:

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

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

Zack Gilkison, Independent Consultant, Hul’q’umi’num’ Text Corpus project. SFU MA 2020. “Quotation in Hul’q’umi’num’ Performance.” CPP Lab co-manager, 2021-2022.

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

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. Lab visitor 2023-2024.

Alissa Hewton, currently in UBC MSc program, Speech Pathology. SFU 2023 BA, Extended Minor in Linguistics/Major in Psychology. CPP Lab volunteer 2021-2022.

Rohan Ben Joseph, BSc student, SFU, Joint Major in Linguistic and Computing Science. CPP Lab volunteer 2021-2022.

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

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.

Samuel To, currently in UBC MSc program in Audiology.  SFU 2023 BA, Major in Linguistics/Minor in Psychology; CPP Lab volunteer 2021-2022.

Vania Vekic, SFU MA student, Linguistics, Lab visitor Summer 2024.

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.”

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

Memberships and Participations include:

Association of Contemporary African Linguistics: (ACAL)

Canadian Linguistics Association (ACL/CLA)

Crete Summer Schools of Linguistics (CreteLing)

Generative Linguists in the Old World (GLOW)

Linguistic Society of America (LSA)

LISTEN Network

The NYI Global Institute of Cultural, Cognitive, and Linguistic Studies: (Virtual NYI)

Speech Prosody Special Interest Group

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.