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Dr Heidi Quinn

Contact

Department: Linguistics

Email: heidi.quinn@canterbury.ac.nz

Phone Number: +64 3 369 3999 ext. null

Office: 19 Creyke Rd Rm 127

Languages: English, German

About
Research / Creative works
Supervision
Networks
Projects
Methods & Equipment

Fields of Research

  • Languages of the Pacific
  • Comparative syntax and semantics
  • English pronoun forms
  • Grammatical features of dialects of German, especially Austrian German
  • Grammatical variation and change
  • Interface between syntax, morphology and other modules of the grammar
  • Microvariation
  • Modelling inter-speaker and intra-speaker variation
  • New Zealand English grammar

Researcher Summary

One of my core interests is the study of languages indigenous to the Pacific Islands and I am passionate about encouraging and supporting speakers of these languages to engage in linguistic research. I have supervised MA research on pronouns and agreement markers in two Vanuatu languages carried out by a student from Vanuatu, and two of my MA students have carried out fieldwork on languages spoken in the Solomon Islands and on Borneo. In the field methods honours course I coordinated from 2009-2017, we worked with Pacific language consultants on Samoan, Kiribati, Fijian, Niuean, Tongan, and Solomon Islands Pijin, Bislama, as well as the languages Motu and Jiwaka, which are spoken in Papua New Guinea. I am currently engaged in joint research on the Niuean aspect system with a speaker of Niuean and am a collaborator on a research project on Tense and Aspect in the Pacific, led by scholars at the University of British Columbia.
Grammatical variation and change has been a central focus of my past research, with projects on variation in English pronoun case, variation and change in the syntactic and semantic properties of have(got) constructions in NZ English, and changes in the distribution of modals and marginal modals. I am particularly interested in the language-internal conditioning of (morpho)syntactic variation and change, and in the implications of empirical findings for formal syntactic theory. I am also working on the creation of a searchable corpus of spoken German that incorporates recordings from different varieties spoken in Austria and Germany. Data from this corpus will provide valuable insights into the nature of morphological and syntactic differences between closely related varieties of a single language.

Subject Area: Disciplines

  • Languages & Linguistics: Linguistics

Resources

  • Staff webpage

Research/Scholarly/Creative Works

  • Wong SG-J., Davis I., Sutrave N., Kila R., Peach E., Logan Z. and Quinn H. (2016) Let's 'kakokako' about Motu. Massey University, Wellington: Conference of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand, 21-22 Nov 2016. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Matthewson L., Quinn H. and Talagi L. (2015) Inchoativity meets the Perfect Time Span: The Niuean perfect. Lingua 168: 1-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2015.09.006. (Journal Articles)
  • Brown J., Barbour J., Meyerhoff M. and Quinn H. (2013) Towards a set of New Zealand Linguistic Society Research Ethics Guidelines. Christchurch, New Zealand: New Zealand Linguistics Society Conference, 20-22 Nov 2013. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Matthewson L., Quinn H. and Talagi L. (2012) Notes on the Niuean perfect. In Graf T; Paperno D; Szabolcsi A; Tellings J (Ed.), Theories of everything: In honor of Ed Keenan. UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 17: 222-233. Los Angeles: UCLA Linguistics Department. (Chapters)
  • Connell T., Rennell E., Shirakawa M. and Quinn H. (2011) A case for Voice. Wellington, New Zealand: Linguistics Society of New Zealand 19th Biennial Conference, 17-18 Nov 2011. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2010) Alienability and stative HAVE in New Zealand English. In Hendery R; Hendriks J (Ed.), Grammatical change: Theory and description: 49-63. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. (Chapters)
  • Quinn H. (2009) Downward reanalysis and the rise of stative HAVE got. In Crisma P; Longobardi G (Ed.), Historical Syntax and Linguistic Theory: 212-230. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Chapters)
  • Quinn H. (2009) Head-Movement and Anti-Locality. In NELS 38, Proceedings: 233-242. (Conference Contributions - Published)
  • Quinn H. (2009) Pronoun forms. In Peters P; Collins P; Smith A (Ed.), Comparative Studies in Australian and New Zealand English: Grammar and Beyond: 31-47. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Chapters)
  • Takau L., Gegeo D. and Quinn H. (2009) Pronouns and agreement marking in Bislama and Solomon Islands Pijin: divergent developments in creolisation. Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand: Linguistic Society of New Zealand 18th Biennial Conference, 30 Nov-1 Dec 2009. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Basu A., Hayden C., McKee G., Quinn H. and Sutherland D. (2008) Inquiry-based learning and virtual worlds: Lessons for the adult learner community. New Zealand Journal of Adult Learning 36(2): 62-79. (Journal Articles)
  • Quinn H. (2008) A feature-based account of pronoun case variation in English. Freiburg, Germany: First Triennial Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE 1), 8-11 Oct 2008. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2008) What corpora can and cannot tell us about regional variation in pronoun usage. Dunedin, New Zealand: 11th New Zealand Language and Society Conference, 17-18 Nov 2008. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2007) A feature-based approach to English pronoun forms. Hamilton, New Zealand: Linguistic Society of New Zealand (LSNZ) 17th Biennial Conference, 19-20 Nov 2007. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2007) Head-movement and Anti-Locality. Ottawa, Canada: 38th Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 38), 26-28 Oct 2007. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2007) ONZEminer - a digital tool for tracing the origins and development of New Zealand English. Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand: Transformations 2007: Composing the nation: ideas, peoples, histories, languages, cultures, economies, 27-28 Aug 2007. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2006) Downward reanalysis and the rise of stative HAVE got. Università di Trieste, Trieste, Italy: The 9th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference (DiGS 9), 8-10 Jun 2006. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2006) How to get from have to have got. University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia: Annual Conference of the Australian Linguistics Society (ALS2006) Grammatical Change Workshop, 8-9 Jul 2006. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2006) Past time marking with epistemic modals: variation and change in New Zealand English. Christchurch, New Zealand: New Zealand Language and Society Conference, 19-20 Aug 2006. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2005) A Copy Spell Out analysis of possessive HAVE got. Auckland, New Zealand: New Zealand Linguistic Society Conference, 18 Nov 2005. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2005) Epistemic modals and perfective have. Edinburgh, UK: ICLCE 05 - The 1st International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English, 24 Jun 2005. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2005) Licensing, blocking, and English pronoun case. Madison, WI, USA: ICHL 2005 - The XVIIth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, 2 Aug 2005. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2005) The distribution of pronoun case forms in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 409pp. (Authored Books)
  • Quinn H. (2005) Systems of verbal classification III: agent and patient oriented differentiations (Article 128). In Cruse DA; Hundsnurscher F; Job M; Lutzeier PR (Ed.), Lexikologie/Lexicology: ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Woertern und Wortschaetzen/an international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies: 1015-1019. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. (Chapters)
  • Quinn H. (2004) Constraints on the distribution of English pronoun case forms in coordinates. Christchurch, New Zealand: LFG 2004: Workshop on coordination and agreement, 11 Jul 2004. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2004) Possessive 'have' and '(have) got' in New Zealand English. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA: NWAV 33, 30 Sep 2004. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2004) Testing and modelling the distribution of pronoun case forms in English. Berlin, Germany: ZAS-Potsdam Workshop on Approaches to Empirical Syntax/WOTS-8, 27 Aug 2004. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2004) The syntax of silence: Sluicing, islands, and the theory of ellipsis. WORD-JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL LINGUISTIC ASSOCIATION 55(1): 107-114. (Journal Articles)
  • Kuiper K., McCann H., Quinn H., Aitchison T. and van der Veer K. (2003) SAID: A syntactically annotated idiom database. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania. 235pp. (Authored Books)
  • Quinn H. (2003) A history of English reflexive pronouns: Person, self, and interpretability.. WORD-JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL LINGUISTIC ASSOCIATION 54(3): 444-449. (Journal Articles)
  • Quinn H. (2003) The distribution of pronoun case forms in English. Christchurch, New Zealand. University of Canterbury. (Theses / Dissertations)
  • Quinn H. and Banerji S. (2003) Focus and the position of the object in pseudo-gapping and V-particle constructions. Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand: NZLS Linguistics Conference, 5 Sep 2003. (Conference Contributions - Other)
  • Quinn H. (2002) Review of David Lee's 'Cognitive linguistics: an introduction'. Te Reo 45: 111-120. (Journal Articles)
  • Quinn H. (2000) Why there are no clitics: An alternative on pronominal allomorphy. WORD-JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL LINGUISTIC ASSOCIATION 51(1): 95-101. (Journal Articles)
  • Quinn H. (1999) Morphological systems of the northeast Bavarian dialects in their linguistic and geographical interconnections. WORD-JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL LINGUISTIC ASSOCIATION 50(1): 108-112. (Journal Articles)
  • Quinn H. (1997) Study on the grammatics of Bavarian: A dialectological investigation of the Bavarian spoken in Oberneureutherwaid - German - Steininger,R. WORD-JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL LINGUISTIC ASSOCIATION 48(1): 137-139. (Journal Articles)

Student Supervision

Displaying all items.
    Current
  • PhD - Bürkle D: The acquisition of sentence alternations (2015)
  • PhD - Dan J: Non-canonical uses of personal pronouns in Modern Chinese and New Zealand English
  • PhD - Shirakawa M: The impact of language internal and external factors on simultaneous bilingual acquisition in Japanese-Brazilian Portuguese bilingual children
  • Masters - Allan S: Passive be damned: the construction that won’t be beaten (2008)
  • Masters - Connell T: A sketch grammar of Matek: a land Dayak language of West Kalimantan, Indonesia (2014)
  • Masters - Lee J: The role of social networks and acculturation in processing and understanding English Wh-constructions among Korean learners of English
  • Masters - Middendorf J: Comparing syntactic persistence in written and spoken New Zealand English
  • Masters - Naitoro K: A sketch grammar of ‘Are’are: the sound system and morpho-syntax (2013)
  • Masters - Shirakawa M: A study of syntactic development in Japanese-English bilingual children in Christchurch (2013)
  • Masters - Takau L: English-based Tongue with Oceanic Flavour: A Comparison of Pronouns and Agreement Marking in Bislama and Raga (2010)
  • Masters - Walker A: Phonetic detail and grammaticality judgements (2008)
  • Honours - Connell T: Voice in Malayic languages (2011)
  • Honours - Darbyshire M: A quantitative analysis of variation between the be and have perfect auxiliaries in Early Modern English correspondence (2012)
  • Honours - Lee J: L2 speakers’ perception of the syntactic properties of English (2013)
  • Honours - Li C: A Corpus Study of the Cantonese Sentence-Final Particles ? laa3, ? laak3, ? lo3 and ? lok3 (2015)
  • Honours - Peek M: Challenges for ellipsis in Minimalism: coordination and sluicing (2012)
  • Honours - Read B: An Examination of the Causative Fa'a- in Samoan (2010)
  • Summer Student - Batchelor K: You versus Youse: Grammatical change in north-west England (2012)
  • Summer Student - Doidge T: "Reindeer in wolves' clothing?": A syntactic comparison of the Saami languages to the neighbouring Indo-European and Uralic languages (2010)
  • Summer Student - Mattingley W: Japanese scrambling and information status: actual usage in written texts (2015)

Review and Refereeing

Displaying all items.
  • Peer reviewer for a paper on grammatical variation submitted to the New Zealand English Journal ( 2007 )
  • Peer reviewer for a paper on grammatical variation submitted to the New Zealand English Journal ( 2010 )
  • Peer reviewer for a paper on pronoun case submitted to the Journal of English Linguistics ( 2009 )
  • Peer reviewer for a paper on pronoun case submitted to the Journal of Linguistics ( 2011 )
  • Peer reviewer for a paper on word-class tagging submitted to Te Reo, the journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand ( 2011 )

Research Groups

  • New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB)
  • Origins of New Zealand English Project (ONZE)

Future Research

  • Study of languages indigenous to the Pacific Islands
  • The perfect aspect in Niuean
  • The grammar of Samoan English in New Zealand
  • Addition of syntactic parsing and search facilities to the German corpus
  • Creation of an interactive corpus of German dialect recordings
  • Corpus-based comparison of pronoun use in different dialects of English
  • Examination of factors influencing the past tense form of irregular verbs
  • Analysis of (morpho)syntactic microvariation in the German dialect corpus
  • Further exploration of variation between possessive HAVE and HAVE got
  • Further study of past time marking with epistemic modals in the ONZE corpora
  • Investigation of the historical development of pronoun case variation in English

Key Methodologies

  • Elicitation, archiving, and analysis of foreign language data
  • Minimalist syntactic analysis
  • Constraint-based analysis of variation
  • Corpus-based linguistic analysis
  • Use of the ONZE miner digital corpus and search facilities
  • Use of written surveys to elicit grammatical variation
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