Embedded Files
Monograph [Note: comments are very much welcome!]
Luo, Zhuosi. (2026). Causality and Modality in Language: Lessons from Teochew. Springer; in the book series of "Studies in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory" (Vol. 103). With a foreword by Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai (which I am deeply honored to include).
Building on the rich philosophical literature on causation, this monograph (superseding Chapters 4 & 5 of my doctoral dissertation and the Proc. LSA-98 paper below) offers a new formal semantics account of how natural languages encode causality, challenging the oversimplified, monolithic CAUSE operator common in previous research. Using Teochew (Southern Min) periphrastic causatives as a case study, it demonstrates how (i.) causal (in)directness (temporal, spatial, and participant-related), (ii.) deterministic vs. probabilistic causation, (iii.) benefactive vs. adversative causation, and (iv.) permissive causation can be systematically modeled within a unified Modal Semantics framework paired with Event Semantics. It concludes by comparing such an approach with the Causal Models analysis, and by proposing a causal ontology intended as a blueprint for future cross-linguistic studies of linguistic causation.
Special thanks to student assistants, Jingwen Huang and Siming Liu, for their help with the editing of this monograph!
Edited volume [Note: comments are very much welcome!]
Luo, Zhuosi & Li, Haoze. (under contract). (eds.) New Perspectives on Chinese Formal Semantics. Routledge. With forewords by Paul Portner, Haihua Pan, and Yuan Shen (which we are deeply honored to include).
To our knowledge, this is the first volume contributed entirely by emerging scholars and devoted exclusively to the formal semantics of Chinese. We are honored to bring together fourteen early-career Chinese scholars, each offering specialized expertise on a distinct set of semantic phenomena: Anqi Zhang, Haoze Li, Jess Law, Linmin Zhang, Mingming Liu, Qi Hao, Shumian Ye, Yanyan Cui, Yenan Sun, Yi-Hsun Chen, Yuli Feng, Ying Liu, Yuyin He, Zhuosi Luo. While working within a broadly shared formal-semantic framework, the contributors collectively engage with a wide range of empirical domains and analytical questions.
Special thanks to student assistants, Siming Liu, Xiangqing Li and Jingwen Huang , for their help with the editing of this volume!
Papers [Note: name followed by ^ = student collaborator; *=corresponding author; feel free to email me for a copy -- comments are very much welcome!]
Luo, Zhuosi. (to appear). The linking problem and argument interpretation: A theoretical comparison between the primitive and derivative approaches. [Note: written in Mandarin; 《连接问题与论元释义研究：原生法与派生法的理论梳理及比较》]
Foreign Language Teaching and Research [《外语教学与研究》].
Note: one of the top linguistics journals in China. See Section 2.3, Chapter 2 of my doctoral dissertation for the English version.
Luo, Zhuosi. (to appear). Causation and contextual argument interpretation: A case study on benefactive/adversative causatives.
In Zhuosi Luo & Haoze Li (eds.) New Perspectives on Chinese Formal Semantics. Routledge.
Liu, Siming^ & Luo, Zhuosi*. (to appear). A-movement of non-nominals: Investigating Mandarin VP-fronting.
Proceedings of the 44th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL-44).
Note: This one is more analysis-oriented than the empirically oriented discussion in the Proc. NACCL-38 paper below.
Luo, Zhuosi & Li, Haoze. (to appear). The formal semantics of Chinese: Emerging perspectives.
In Zhuosi Luo & Haoze Li (eds.) New Perspectives on Chinese Formal Semantics. Routledge.
Huang, Jinwen^ & Luo, Zhuosi*. (to appear). Modeling prohibition: A case study on Mandarin jinzhi.
Proceedings of The 38th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-38).
Luo, Zhuosi & Biggs, Alison. (to appear). Big and small as dimension-less degree modifiers: Evidence from Shantou Teochew. [draft]
Proceedings of the 43rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL-43).
Liu, Siming^ & Luo, Zhuosi*. (to appear). Non-nominal A-movement: Evidence from Mandarin VP-fronting.
Proceedings of The 38th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-38).
Luo, Zhuosi. (2026). On the elusive nature of AGENT and agentive diagnostics: Lessons from causee. [download]
Language Sciences, 113: 101773.
Note: It is a linguistics-philosophy paper.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). Impersonal pronouns: Typological insights from Teochew implicit causees. [download]
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 43: 1983–2038.
Luo, Zhuosi & Biggs, Alison. (2025). Classifiers and comparison class: Evidence for cross-linguistic variation in the calculation of standards. [download]
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 29 (SuB-29), 935-952.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). Acknowledging the gap while bridging it: The experimental vs. theoretical divide on the cognitive science study of language. [download]
Cognitive Science, 49: e70043.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). Contextual causee interpretation: Lessons from Teochew kə-causative. [pdf]
Proceedings of the 41st West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL-41), 419-426.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). New directions in theoretical linguistics: A combination of the categorial approach and probability theory. [Note: written in Mandarin; 《理论语言学新视野：绝对范畴法与概率论结合》]
Linguistic Sciences [《语言科学》], 24(1): 40-53.
Note: one of the core linguistics journals in China.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2024). Causality and modality: A case study on Teochew periphrastic causatives. [download]
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 2024 (LSA-98), 9(1): 5650.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2024). Interpreting causee in a ‘permissive’ causative: A case study on Teochew. [download]
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 2024 (LSA-98), 9(1): 5654.
Biggs, Alison & Luo, Zhuosi. (2022). Adjective classifiers in Shantou Teochew. [pdf]
Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS-56), 25-36.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2021). Multiple Mandarin ‘go’ counterparts in Teochew and their cartographic distributions.
In Fuzhen Si & Luigi Rizzi (eds.) Current Issues in Syntactic Cartography: A Cross-linguistic Perspective, 261–286. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2019). The synthetic performances of Teochew.
Lingua Sinica, 5: 58-88.
Ph.D. dissertation
Luo, Zhuosi. (2024). Causality, modality and contextual argument interpretation: Lessons from Teochew. [Lingbuzz]
Committee: Paul Portner (co-chair), Ruth Kramer(co-chair), Alison Biggs, Bryce Huebner.
Other degree papers
Luo, Zhuosi. (2022). Optional causee in Teochew ‘give’-causative.
The 2nd Ph.D. Qualifying paper, Georgetown University. Supervisors: Paul Portner, Alison Biggs, Ruth Kramer.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2021). Tone sandhi patterns in Shantou Teochew.
The 1st Ph.D. Qualifying Paper, Georgetown University. Supervisor: Elizabeth Zsiga.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2019). Derived heads of Cantonese left periphery and cartographic distributions of its sentence final particles.
M.A. Thesis, China Foreign Affairs University. Supervisor: Fuzhen Si.
Computational linguistics output
Annotation contributor for The Georgetown University Multilayer Corpus (GUM), part of the Universal Dependencies project.
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