I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Georgia. Previously, I graduated from the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara in Spring 2025. My research covers a broad range of topics encompassing the intersections of grammar, discourse (both conversational interaction and narrative discourse), and prosody, mostly through naturally occurring linguistic data.
My thesis work focuses on three topics in modern Tibetan (mostly spoken Ü-Tsang/Central Tibetan) – light verb constructions, argument order, and similative demonstratives – and examine them from a variety of perspectives, combining computational and corpus-linguistic methodology with insights from linguistic discourse analysis, grammaticalisation theory, construction grammar, conversation analysis/interactional linguistics, Columbia School linguistics, and more. I was previously a Columbia School Linguistic Society fellow. My past and present work has also examined various phenomena in Cantonese, Literary Chinese (especially the Six Dynasties period), English, P’urhépecha, and to a lesser extent Mandarin and Japanese.
Before UCSB, I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree from the University of Hong Kong, where I double-majored in General Linguistics and Statistics, and worked on various projects on psycholinguistics and phonology as a student research assistant at the Language Development Lab, HKU. Much of my experimental work comes from this period.
Research vision
Brief version: I combine qualitative inspection and quantitative techniques from computational corpus linguistics to explore various topics at the intersection of morphosyntax, prosody, and discourse.
Long version:
I believe the best way to approach the study of language is to treat it as a complex, dynamic set of conventions emerging from decisions we make through a multitude interpersonal interactions, shaped by recurring social and communicative needs as well as the properties of human cognition. Thus, whenever I examine a linguistic phenomenon, I aim to do so not from a single perspective but by combining relevant insights from as many subdisciplines and neighbouring disciplines as possible. For example, one of my recent papers examines question-answer sequences in the Diamond Sutra by combining insights from dialogic syntax, Conversation Analysis (including its applications to religious studies), and construction grammar. Because of this broad approach, I tend to gravitate towards corpus linguistics, where the analyst must confront with the multitude of factors behind the data, though I also have experience with experimental approaches.
One of my biggest interests in linguistics is how we can integrate modern quantitative methods into linguistics in such a way that the methods are best tailored to the nature of our research questions, hypotheses, and data. My background in statistics allows me to learn a wide spectrum of methods. On the one hand, I have an interest both in developing model-based approaches, such as my ongoing work integrating ranking models into word order research, as well as methods of statistical inference associated with these models, such as regularisation methods. On the other hand, I am also interested in model-free algorithmic methods, such as many clustering and dimensionality reduction methods. I believe that both approaches have their place, depending on whether our goal is to model a process, or to look for patterns, attributes and categories. I also have a strong interest in issues of operationalisation and measurement in quantitative corpus linguistics, especially as regards the application of information theory in linguistics.
Although my work is broadly situated in the functionalist side of linguistics, I do not limit myself to any particular school of thought, and my work has benefited from a multitude of influences from all corners of linguistics, including usage-based/discourse-functional linguistics (including such theories as dialogic syntax, accessibility theory, and preferred argument structure), but also related traditions such as construction grammar, Conversation Analysis/Interactional Linguistics, Columbia School linguistics, cognitive semantics (such as force dynamics), and so on.
Currently, my main interests in terms of language are Central/Ü-Tsang Tibetan (the main language variety I examine in my thesis as well as the main language I’m trying to learn to speak!), Cantonese (my native language), Literary Chinese (from Late Archaic through the Mediaeval period but with a focus on the Six Dynasties era), and P’urhépecha, an Indigenous language of western Mexico. I have also worked with data from American English, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, and continue to have an interest in Bodish and more generally Trans-Himalayan linguistic typology.
In terms of topics, I examine a broad range of topics within the areas of grammar and discourse and their interactions with semantics, prosody and lexis. Detailed information about specific lines of research I’m involved in can be found on the research programme page.
黎嘉祐 [lɐi̯˨˩ kaː˥ jɐu̯˨] 