Status: Ongoing (Sept 2025–)

Affiliation: University of Oxford

External Funder: Leverhulme Trust

My Project Role: Postdoctoral Research Fellow

PI Collaborator: Prof. Mary Dalymple

Project Website: click here

Status: Completed (2019-2023); 

Affiliation: University of Manchester;

My Project Role: PhD Researcher

My PhD project adopted an empirically oriented approach. It involved designing numerous linguistic diagnostics, meticulous analysis of data drawn from large-scale corpora, as well as the use of acceptability-judgment experiments followed by mixed-effects statistical analyses in R. To model the empirical patterns, I adopted the theoretical framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) augmented with Glue Semantics and Discourse Representation Theory to construct formally explicit analyses that address issues at syntax-semantics-discourse interfaces. My LFG analyses involved comparison with existing proposals formulated in other grammatical frameworks, in particular, Minimalist ones, in an effort to facilitate cross-theoretical understanding. Subsequently, I instantiated (part of) my analyses using the grammar-engineering tool Xerox Linguistic Environment to create computer-processible grammar fragments.

Deliverables: (i) 3 refereed journal papers (1 in progress of publication); (ii) 3 refereed conference papers; (iii) 10 presentations (UK, Europe, US).

Status: Completed (2016-2017); 

Affiliation: University of Hong Kong; 

Project Nature: MA Dissertation Research Project

This project examined the relationship between language dominance and inter-sentential code-switching in Hong Kong Cantonese–English bilingual children by analysing longitudinal corpus data. The findings suggested that intra-sentential and inter-sentential code-switching each have a different status in bilingual children’s developing grammar, underlining the methodological importance of separating the two constructs in future investigations. In societies where intra-sentential (but not inter-sentential) code-switching is a social norm, inter-sentential code-switching could serve as a sign of early bilinguals’ dominance status.

Deliverable: 1 refereed journal paper

Status: Ongoing (2023-Present)

My Role: Co-organiser/Contributor

Parallel Grammar (ParGram) Consortium is a decades-long international collaboration to develop cross-linguistic computational grammars that have both industrial strength and solid basis on linguistic theory. Together with Prof. Mary Dalrymple (University of Oxford) and Dr Elaine Ui Dhonnchadha (Trinity College Dublin), we have been co-organising monthly meetings for the global ParGram community. Our meetings focus on comparing the similarities and differences of syntactic structures generated by cross-linguistic computational grammars with the aim of further developing and fine-tuning these grammars.