Esther Lam

Publications:

Lam, E. (in press). Two copulas in Cantonese: Distinguishing equatives from other copular clauses. Proceedings of NELS 56.

Lam, E. (2023). Definite-like meaning of bare classifiers in Nung. Functions of Language.

Lam, E. (2023). Definiteness of classifier-noun phrases in Nung. Proceedings of TripleAFLA: 9th TripleA workshop for semantic fieldworkers, 29th annual meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association, 32-43

Conference presentations:

Forum on Cantonese Linguistics --- 4 July 2026 --- Invited talk

• Hai versus Zauhai: Two copulas in Cantonese

The 15th Workshop on Theoretical East Asian Linguistics --- 5-6 June 2026 --- Oral presentation

• Mapping meaning to structure: Cantonese argumental and predicative nominal phrases

The 50th Penn Linguistics Conference --- 28 Feb - 1 Mar 2026 --- Oral presentation

• Specificational copular sentences: New evidence from Cantonese

58th Annual meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea --- 26-29 Aug 2025 --- Oral presentation

• Cantonese pseudocleft-like sentences

TripleAFLA --- 8 Jun- 1 Jul 2022 --- Oral presentation

• In/definite Classifier-Noun Phrases in Nung (Tai language spoken in Vietnam)

31st Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society --- 18-20 May 2022 --- Oral presentation

• "Bare classifiers” in Nung (a Tai language of Vietnam)

11th International Conference of Construction Grammar --- 18-21 Aug 2021 --- Oral presentation

• Nominal grounding in a classifier language: a case study of Nung (a Tai-Kadai language),

Forum on Cantonese Linguistics --- 29 May 2021 --- Oral presentation

• Cantonese bare classifiers as iota

Research

My current research focus is on copular clauses in Cantonese, Muong (Austroasiatic) and Nung, as well as how these languages inform theories related to specificational copular clauses. 

I also carry out ongoing linguistic fieldwork on Nung (Tai). My fieldwork data is available here