Books
Luo, Zhuosi. (accepted with minor revisions). Causality and modality. Springer; in the book series of "Studies in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory".
Note: This monograph offers a new formal semantic account of how natural languages encode causality, challenging the oversimplified, monolithic CAUSE operator common in previous research. Using Teochew periphrastic causatives as a case study, it demonstrates how causal (in)directness (temporal, spatial, and participant-related), deterministic vs. probabilistic causation, benefactive vs. adversative causation, and permissive causation can be systematically modeled within a unified Modal Semantics framework paired with Event Semantics. It concludes by proposing a causal ontology intended as a blueprint for future cross-linguistic studies of linguistic causation.
Luo, Zhuosi & Li, Haoze. (under contract). (eds.) New perspectives on Chinese Formal Semantics. Routledge.
Note: To our knowledge, this will be the very first volume devoted exclusively to research on the formal semantics of Chinese. We are honored to feature contributions from a group of early-career Chinese scholars from across regions and countries, each emerging as a specialist in their respective domain: Yi-Hsun Chen, Yanyan Cui, Yuli Feng, Qi Hao, Yuyin He, Jess Law, Mingming Liu, Ying Liu, Yenan Sun, Shumian Ye, Anqi Zhang, and Linmin Zhang.
Papers [*=corresponding author; feel free to email me for a copy -- comments are very much welcome!]
Luo, Zhuosi. (under revision). On the elusive nature of AGENT and agentive diagnostics: Lessons from causee.
Journal article. About 50 pages.
Biggs, Alison & Luo, Zhuosi*. (under revision). Building adjectives: Evidence from adjective classifiers in Teochew. [title might be modified]
Journal article. About 50 pages.
Luo, Zhuosi. (under contract). Causation and argument interpretation.
In Zhuosi Luo & Haoze Li (eds.) New perspectives on Chinese Formal Semantics. London: Routledge.
Luo, Zhuosi & Li, Haoze. (under contract). Introduction: The formal semantics of Chinese.
In Zhuosi Luo & Haoze Li (eds.) New perspectives on Chinese Formal Semantics. London: Routledge.
Luo, Zhuosi & Biggs, Alison. (to appear). Big and small as dimension-less degree modifiers: Evidence from Shantou Teochew.
Proceedings of the 43rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL-43). [draft]
Luo, Zhuosi & Biggs, Alison. (2025). Classifiers and comparison class: Evidence for cross-linguistic variation in the calculation of standards.
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 29 (SuB-29), 935-952. [pdf]
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). Impersonal pronouns: Typological insights from Teochew implicit causees.
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 43: 1983–2038.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). Contextual causee interpretation: Lessons from Teochew kə-causative.
Proceedings of the 41st West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL-41), 419-426. [pdf]
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). Acknowledging the gap while bridging it: The experimental vs. theoretical divide on the cognitive science study of language.
Cognitive Science, 49: e70043.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2025). New directions in theoretical linguistics: A combination of the categorial approach and probability theory [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.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2024). Causality and modality: A case study on Teochew periphrastic causatives.
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 2024 (LSA-98), 9(1): 5650. [download]
Luo, Zhuosi. (2024). Interpreting causee in a ‘permissive’ causative: A case study on Teochew.
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 2024 (LSA-98), 9(1): 5654. [download]
Biggs, Alison & Luo, Zhuosi. (2022). Adjective classifiers in Shantou Teochew.
Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS-56), 25-36. [pdf]
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. Amsterdam: 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 second Ph.D. Qualifying paper, Georgetown University. Supervisors: Paul Portner, Alison Biggs and Ruth Kramer.
Luo, Zhuosi. (2021). Tone sandhi patterns in Shantou Teochew.
The first 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.