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RESEARCH INTERESTS

I have worked in various areas of theoretical linguistics research, including morphology, syntax, corpus linguistics, and machine translation. My main interest lies in the area of cognitive, typological grammar, and most of my work has focused on the grammar of spontaneous spoken language. In addition to this ongoing interest, I am currently working to expand my research towards the area of language evolution & culture and the factors influencing these.


REFEREED PUBLICATIONS               

                                        
BOOK
2009. Cleft Constructions in Spoken English.  Berlin:  VDM Verlag.


ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS               

In press. With Gerry Delahunty. "Inferentials: fixed or not?" To appear in Token.

2011. With Paul James. "A Diachronic Corpus of New Zealand Newspapers" New Zealand English Journal 25, 1-14.

2011. With Gerry Delahunty. "Inferentials in Spoken English" Pragmatics 21(3), 307-340.

2011. The Science of Numbers: does Language Help or Hinder? (in a special issue in the Honour of Prof. Roy Harris), Language Sciences. 33(4): 562-568.

2011. With Mark Pagel. How do we use language? Shared patterns in the frequency of word-use across seventeen World languages Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366: 1101-1107.
2010. With Solomon Marcus. Syntactic Iconicity: With and Beyond Its Accepted Principles.  Revue Roumaine de Linguistique.  4: 19-44.

2009. With Steven Miller.  Are Clefts Contagious in Conversation? English Language and Linguistics. 13: 127-132.

2009. Formulaic Tendencies of Demonstrative Clefts in Spoken English. In R. Corrigan, E.A. Moravcsik, H. Quali and K.M. Wheatley (eds.) Formulaic Language: Volume 1. Distribution and Historical Change. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 55-76.

2008. Clefting and Extraposition in English,  ICAME - International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English Journal, 32: 7-33.

2008. Demonstrative Clefts and Double Cleft Constructions in Spoken English, Studia Linguistica, 62(1): 78-118.

2007. Light and heavy reflexive marking: the Middle Domain in Romanian, Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 5: 239-269.

2005. Reflexive-Middle and Reciprocal-Middle Continua in Romanian, (Refereed) Proceedings of the 2004 Conference of the Australian Linguistics Society, July 13-15, archived at the University of Sydney.

2004. Machine Translation of Various Text Genres, Te Reo – the New Zealand Linguistic Society Journal,  46: 67-94.

2001. Romanian Clitics: Siding with the French or the Serbo-Croatian?, Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 1-4: 91-105.

2001. The Journey of the Four Colour Theorem Through Time, The New Zealand Mathematics Magazine, 38(3): 1-10.

BOOK REVIEWS

2011. Book review of Jim Miller's book "A Critical Introduction to Syntax" (Continuum) in The Australian Journal of Linguistics, Vol 31, 3, p. 519-530.

2010. Book review of David Crystal's book "Just a Phrase I am Going Through: My Life in Language" (Routledge) in The Australian Journal of Linguistics, Vol 30, 3, p. 367-369.

2010. Book review of Nicole Dehé and Yordanka Kavalova's book "Parentheticals" (John Benjamins) in Studies in Language, 34(1): 205-211.

2010. Book review of  Kathleen Ahrens's (ed.) book "Politics, Gender, and Conceptual Metaphors" (Palgrave) for the International Cognitive Linguistics Association.

2009. Book review of "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes - Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle" (by Dan Everett), in Science under the title "Pondering God and Grammar", Vol. 323, 23 Jan., p. 463.

2008. Book review of  "The Importance of Not Being Earnest" (by Wallace Chafe), Linguist List 19.3677, 01 Dec.

2002. A beautiful mind, (book review for “Mathematical Mountaintops” by John Casti), The New Zealand Listener, Vol.  183, May 18-24.  


LETTERS
2010. Linguistics' Aid to Science Education, letter published in Science E-Letters, August 2010.

2005. Languages with soul, letter published in New Scientist, Vol. 185, 5th March, p. 33.

SELECTED CONFERENCES & INVITED TALKS                                               

2011 (May). Language evolution: what do your words say about you?, Invited talk for the University of Reading Fellgett Seminar.

2011 (Mar). With Mark Pagel. Whose meaning, and whose identity?, University of West England (Bristol), 12-15 April, 2011,  I-mean Conference: Meaning and Context.

2010 (Oct). With Mark Pagel. "Selfish Words", talk presented at the Re-thinking Synonymy Conference, University of Helsinki, Finland.

2010 (Oct). With Gerald Delahunty. "Inferentials in Spoken English: are they fixed or not?", talk presented at the Fixed Phrases in English: Use and Rhetorical Strategies Meeting, University of Perpignan, France.

2010 (Mar). With Mark Pagel. "The Life of Words", talk presented the 34th International LAUD Symposium: Cognitive Sociolinguistics, University of Landau, Germany.

2010. (Feb). With Mark Pagel, Andrew Meade and Quentin Atkinson. "What can phylogenetics tell us about deep history?", talk presented at the Phylogenetics Meeting DOOM 2010, New Zealand.

2009 (Oct). "Individual differences in the use of cleft constructions in speech" with Michael Barlow, at the American Association for Corpus Linguistics Conference, University of Alberta, Canada.

2009 (Feb). "Demonstrative Clefts in Spoken English", seminar presented at the Oxford Linguistics Circle, Oxford, UKWith Anita and Anna in Brisbane at ALS2006.

2008 (Aug). "Syntactic Convergence in Spoken English", with Steven Miller, talk presented at the the Language, Culture and Communication Conference, the University of Brighton, UK.

2007 (Nov). "Deictic links in Demonstrative Clefts in Speech", talk presented at the New  Zealand Linguistics Society, The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

2007 (Aug). "Formulaic Tendencies in Demonstrative Clefts", talk presented at the 2nd Conference of the UK-Cognitive Linguistics Association, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales. 

2007 (Aug). "Demonstrative clefts in spoken New Zealand English", seminar presented to the Language Maintenance Research Group, Department of Linguistics and English Language, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, Scotland.

2007 (July). "Clefting in Spoken English", talk presented at the 10th International Conference of Cognitive Linguistics, in Jagiellonian University of Krakow, Poland.

In Hamilton at NZ Ling Soci Conf 2008  2007 (April). "Automated Taggers for Spoken Language - A Linguist's Perspective",        seminar presented at the Department of Computer Science, UCLA, California, US.

 2007 (April). "Formulaic demonstrative clefts in spoken English", talk presented at the  UWM Linguistics Symposum on Formulaic Language, held at the University of  Wisconsin, Milwaukee, US.

 2006 (July). "Th-clefts in the Land of Speech", talk presented at the 3rd International  Postgraduate Linguistics Conference, held at Victoria University of Wellington, NZ.

2006 (July). "Clefting in Spoken English", talk presented at the Australian Linguistics Society Conference, held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

2005 (Nov). "Th-clefts - that's what all the fuss is all about", talk presented at the New Zealand Linguistics Society Conference, held at the University of Auckland, NZ.

2005 (Feb). "Learning language, learning about language and learning to teach language", talk presented at the University of Auckland Careers’ Day, 24th August, (2004), and at the University of Auckland Orientation Day.

2004 (July). "The Middle Voice in Romanian", talk presented at the Australian Linguistic Society Conference, Sydney, Australia.

2004 (Jan). "Looking for funding at tertiary level", talk presented at Manukau Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.

2002 (Nov). "Machine Translation of Various Text Genres", talk presented at the 7th Language and Society Conference, Hamilton, New Zealand.


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