Jane Simpson,
Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney


Blog (shared) on endangered languages and cultures: http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/elac/

Contact details

Jane Simpson                 Office:     Transient Bldg, Rm 227
Linguistics F12                Phone:   +61 2 9351 3655
University of Sydney        Fax:       +61 2 9351 7572
NSW 2006,AUSTRALIA     E-Mail:   jhs AT mail.usyd.edu.au
                                        Messages: +61 2 9036 9521


BA(Hons) and MA, Australian National University


Research Interests


 

Research interests


  ACLA, a project on child language acquisition in indigenous communities in Central and Northern Australia, funded by the Australian Research Council.
Colleagues: 
Gillian Wigglesworth and Patrick McConvell, Samantha Disbray, Felicity Meakins, Karin Moses and Carmel O'Shannessy on


syntax, especially Lexical-Functional Grammar I Wayan Arka and I are applying LFG in Austronesian languages.

 working with some colleagues from the Australian National University (Harold Koch, Luise Hercus and David Nash) on comparison and reconstruction of languages spoken in the centre of Australia.

working with Christopher Manning on a computer interface for the Warlpiri Dictionary Project being coordinated by Mary Laughren, including compiling an image bank, as well as testing the use of the interface in other languages such as Ngardi.

working with Robert Amery (University of Adelaide) on a book of materials of Kaurna, the indigenous language spoken around Adelaide. This includes a grammar and comparative word-lists.  We are presently working on preparing learning materials with a grant from DCITA.

a grammar and dictionary of Warumungu, a language spoken around Tennant Creek. I have published a Learner's Guide to Warumungu  ( IAD Press). 

working with Luise Hercus and Flavia Hodges on indigenous place-names of Australia.  We have edited  a book, The Land is a Map.

working with colleagues on digital archiving, and on supporting PARADISEC, an archive of Pacific and regional language and endangered culture material, directed by  Linda Barwick with Nick Thieberger.

Australian English.  David Nash and I have compiled a database of hypocoristics of Australian English words, including placenames

language maintenance.  I have a long-standing connection with Papulu Apparr-kari, the Tennant Creek Language Centre, and with Nyinkkkanyunyu, the cultural centre in Tennant Creek.


My recent professional work includes:
Blackwood by the Beach 2006: Workshop on Australian Indigenous languages  (17 - 19 March, 2006)

Blackwood by the Beach 2005: Workshop on Australian Indigenous languages  (18 - 20 March, 2005)
Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference, Sydney, (12 - 15 July, 2004)
Australian Linguistics Institute Indigenous Language Programme (8 - 12 July, 2002)
Digitisation workshop Sydney (10-11 August 2001)
Dictionary Research Centre Advisory Board 2002 - 2006
Research Network for Linguistic Diversity Advisory Panel 2004 - 2006
Pacific Linguistics Editorial Board 2003 - 2006
Australian National Placenames Survey National Executive Board 2003 - 004
International Lexical-Functional Grammar Association    Member of Executive, 1999 - 2002
Member, ARC Human Communication Science Network, 2004 - 2006
Australian Journal of Linguistics Editorial Board 2005 - 6
PARADISEC Steering Committee, 2002 - 2006

Vice-president of the Australian Linguistics Society 1999
President of AUSTRALEX (Australasian Lexicographical Society) 1999


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Publications

Books

2002. [with Luise Hercus and Flavia Hodges]. (eds.)  The land is a map: Placenames of indigenous origin in Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics and Pandanus Press.

2002. A learner's guide to Warumungu: Mirlamirlajinjjiki Warumunguku apparrka. Alice Springs: IAD Press.

2001.  [with David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin, and Barry Alpher] (eds.) Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages. Pacific Linguistics 512. Canberra:Pacific Linguistics

1998.  [with Luise Hercus]. (eds.)  History in portraits: biographies of nineteenth century South Australian Aboriginal people.  Canberra: Aboriginal History Monograph Series 6.

1991. Warlpiri morphosyntax: a lexicalist approach.  Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Dordrecht: Kluwer.


Articles and chapters

2005.    'Depictives in English and Warlpiri'. In Secondary predication and adverbial modification. The typology of depictives, eds. Nikolaus P.  Himmelmann and Eva Schultze-Berndt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 69-106.

2005.  [with Samantha Disbray] 'The expression of possession in Wumpurrarni English, Tennant Creek'. Monash University Linguistics papers Vol 5, Nos. 1 and 2 (Special issue)Language contact, hybrids and new varieties: Emergent possessive constructions 4:65-85.

2004.     Hypocoristics in Australian English. In A Handbook of Varieties of English:  Vol. 2: Morphology and Syntax: Australasia and the Pacific,  eds. Kate Burridge and Bernd Kortmann. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 643-656

2004. [with Miriam Corris, Christopher Manning, and Susan Poetsch] 'How useful and usable are dictionaries for speakers of Australian Indigenous languages?' International Journal of Lexicography 17:33-68.

2004. [with Luise Hercus] 'Thura Yura as a subgroup'. In Australian languages: classification and the comparative method, eds. Claire Bowern and Harold Koch, 179-206, Appendices 582-645. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

2003. Representing information about words digitally. In "Researchers, Communities, Institutions, Sound  Recording", an Academy of Humanities sponsored workshop, ed. Linda Barwick. Sydney: PARADISEC. Online proceedings at: <http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/index.php?cf=2>

2002. 'From common ground to syntactic construction: associated path in Warlpiri'. In Ethnosyntax: explorations in grammar and culture, ed. Nick J. Enfield, 287-307. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2002. [with Miriam Corris, Christopher Manning, and Susan Poetsch] 'Dictionaries and endangered languages'. In Language endangerment and language maintenance, eds. David Bradley and Maya Bradley, 329-347. London: Curzon Press.

2001. 'Hypocoristics of place-names in Australian English'. In Varieties of English: Australian English, eds. P. Collins and D. Blair.  89-112. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:Benjamins.

2001. 'Preferred word order, argument structure and the grammaticalisation of associated path'. In Time over matter: diachronic perspectives on morphosyntax, eds. M. Butt and T. H. King.  173-208. Stanford:CSLI.

2001. [with Luise Hercus]. 'The tragedy of Nauo'. In Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages, eds. J. Simpson, D. Nash, M. Laughren, P. Austin and B. Alpher.  263-290. Canberra:Pacific Linguistics.

2000. [with Miriam Corris, Christopher Manning, and Susan Poetsch]. 'Bilingual dictionaries for Australian Aboriginal languages: user studies on the place of paper and electronic dictionaries'. In Proceedings of the ninth EURALEX International Congress, EURALEX 2000, eds. U. Heid, S. Evert, E. Lehmann and C. Rohrer.  169-181. Stuttgart:EURALEX.

2000. Camels as pidgin-carriers: Afghan cameleers as a vector for the spread of features of Australian Aboriginal pidgins and creoles. In Processes of language contact: studies from Australia and the South Pacific, ed. J. Siegel.  Collections Champs linguistiques. 195-244. Saint-Laurent, Quebec:Fides .[AGMV Marquis, member of the Scabrini Group].

1999. Comments on K.P. and T Mohanan.  In Grammatical semantics: evidence for structure in meaning, edited by T. Mohanan and L. Wee, pp.261-275. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

1998.  'Warumungu morphology'. In Handbook of Morphology, edited by A. Spencer and A. Zwicky, pp.707-736. Basil Blackwell Ltd: Oxford.

1998. 'Personal names'.  In History in portraits: biographies of nineteenth century South Australian Aboriginal people, edited by J. Simpson and L. Hercus, pp.221-229. Canberra: Aboriginal History Monograph Series 6.

1997. 'Perceptions of meteorology in some Aboriginal languages'. In Windows on meteorology: Australian perspective, edited by E. K. Webb, pp.20-28. Collingwood: CSIRO Publishing/Australian Metereological and Oceanographic Society.

1996. 'Early language contact varieties in South Australia'. Australian Journal of Linguistics 16.2: 169-207.

1996.  [with Ken Hale and Mary Laughren].'Warlpiri Syntax' in Handbook of Syntax, edited by J. Jacobs, pp.1430-1451. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.

1995. 'Making sense of the words in old word-lists' in Paper and talk, edited by N. Thieberger, pp.121-145. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.

1994. [with Rob Amery.]  'Kaurna' in Macquarie Aboriginal Words, edited by N. Thieberger and W. McGregor, pp.144-172. Sydney: Macquarie Library.

1994. 'Confidentiality of linguistic material:  the case of  Aboriginal land claims' in Language and the law, edited by J. Gibbons, pp.428-439. London and New York: Longman.

1993. 'Making dictionaries' in Language in Aboriginal Australia, edited by M. Walsh and C. Yallop, pp.123-144. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.

1992. 'Notes on a manuscript dictionary of Kaurna' in The language game: papers in memory of Donald C. Laycock, edited by T. Dutton, M. Ross and D. Tryon, pp.409-415. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

1990. 'A note on an inversion marker in Warumungu pronominal clitics' in Language and History: Essays in  honour of Luise A. Hercus, edited by P. Austin, R. M. W. Dixon, T. Dutton and I. White, pp.259-269. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

1988. 'Case and complementiser suffixes in Warlpiri' in Complex sentence constructions in Australian languages, edited by P. Austin, pp.205-218. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.

1987. 'In support of regional language centres'. Aboriginal Languages Association Newsletter Oct./Nov. 1987: 5-13.

1986. [with Meg Withgott]. 'Pronominal clitic clusters and templates.' in The  Syntax of Pronominal Clitics, edited by H. Borer, Orlando: Academic Press.

1985. 'How Warumungu people express new concepts'. Language in Central Australia 4.12-25.

1983. 'Discontinuous verbs and the interaction of syntax and morphology' in Second Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, edited by M. Barlow, D. P. Flickinger and M. T. Wescoat, pp.275-286. Stanford:

1983. 'Resultatives' in Papers in Lexical-functional Grammar, edited by L. Levin, M. Rappaport and A. Zaenen, pp.143-157. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.

1983. [with Joan Bresnan]. 'Control and obviation in Warlpiri'. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1.1: 49-64.

1981. [with Lori Levin]. 'Quirky case and the structure of Icelandic lexical entries.' in Seventeenth Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, edited by Carrie S. Masek, pp.185-196. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

1981. [with David Nash].  '"No-name" in Central Australia' in Papers from the Parasession on Language and Behavior, edited by Carrie S. Masek, pp.165-177. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Unpublished

1990.  [with David Nash]. Wakirti Warlpiri: a short dictionary of Eastern Warlpiri with grammatical notes.  xv + 61pp. Tennant Creek: The Authors.

1989. [with David Nash]. Final report: AIAS National Lexicography project. Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.

Recent papers

2006. Mushin, Ilana, and Simpson, Jane.   "Free to bound to free? Interactions between pragmatics and syntax in the development of Australian pronominal systems".  Language change workshop, Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference.  8th July 2006. Power point slides here, handout here

2006.  McConvell, Patrick , and Simpson, Jane. "The Aboriginal Child Language Acquisition Project (ACLA): fieldwork, media annotation and cataloguing". In Ethnographic E-research Annotation Conference, 15 - 17 February 2006. Melbourne.

2006.  McConvell, Patrick, and Simpson, Jane. "The transitive marker  - im in Australian Indigenous English, Creoles and hybrid languages: variation and change. In Blackwood by the Beach: Fifth Workshop on Australian languages.  17 March 2006. Pearl Beach, NSW.

2005.  (With Ilana Mushin) Discourse prominence in four Australian languages. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference. Melbourne. September 29th 2005. Power point slides here.

2005.  (With Gillian Wigglesworth) The language learning environment of indigenous preschool children .  Applied Linguistics Association of Australia, Annual Congress, Colloquium on indigenous children’s language and learning. Melbourne. September 28th 2005.  Power point slides here.

2005.  Expressing pragmatic constraints on word order in Warlpiri.  To appear in Jane Grimshaw, Joan Maling, Christopher Manning, Jane Simpson, and Annie Zaenen. submitted. Architectures, rules, and preferences: A festschrift for Joan Bresnan. Stanford CA: CSLI.

2005. (with Disbray, Samantha). The expression of possession in Wumpurrarni English, Tennant Creek. To appear in Simon Musgrave ed. Language contact, hybrids and new varieties: Emergent possessive constructions. Monash University Linguistics papers Vol 5, Nos. 1 and 2 (Special issue)

2005. (with Rob Amery and MaryAnne Gale).  ' I could have saved you linguists a lot of time and trouble:  178 years of research and documentation of South Australia’s  Indigenous Languages, 1826 – 2004'. To appear in a book on the history of work on Australian languages edited by William McGregor.

 (with I Wayan Arka). Control of complex arguments in BalineseTo appear in Peter Austin and Simon Musgrave eds.  An earlier version (1998) is available in Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King (eds). On-line LFG proceedings at www-csli.stanford.edu/publications/LFG3/lfg98-toc.html.



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SUPERVISION


Before you enrol in a thesis course

Areas for Supervision

Expectations

And if you do decide to enrol..

Before you enrol in a thesis course...

Think about what you want to do when you finish the course. Research and teaching jobs in
linguistics are very hard to come by.
• Think about a topic, and whether you can bear to spend years thinking mostly about that topic
• Think about who would be best able to supervise a thesis on that topic, and whether that
person would help you to produce the best work you can.
• Find out about the course.  Are there other students working in similar areas who can stimulate
you? Is there a structured programme (thesis confirmation, seminars etc)? Is there financial support
for fieldwork, conferences, editing, thesis binding?


Areas for Supervision

language documentation and writing descriptive grammars of under-described languages of Asia,
the Pacific and Oceania
• Australian Aboriginal languages
• language structure: morphology, syntax, lexical semantics, information structure
• lexicography
• language maintenance
• Lexical Functional Grammar
If you want to work with me on a well-described language other than English, (Chinese, Arabic, German..)
 I'd prefer to co-supervise you with someone who is a native speaker.

Other topics which I would be happy to co-supervise on include:
Language acquisition in smaller languages and language contact situations
• Digital archiving
• Creative and literary uses of language


Expectations
I usually spend one semester a year in Sydney, during which time I like to see students at least
every fortnight.  I spend the rest of the year elsewhere, but am happy to read material, and discuss it
by e-mail, i-Chat and in occasional visits.  I prefer to receive written work a few days
in advance of each appointment.  I  try to give detailed feedback on students' work, and to help
them find out where there are gaps in their understanding.  I am also a nit-picking proof-reader and editor
and so I prefer students to spell-check and edit their work before giving it to me. Otherwise I waste
time on this, which should be spent thinking about the ideas instead.

I want my students to:
        (i)      find and state their research questions
        (ii)     learn to express their own ideas clearly
        (iii)    read widely and build their analyses on the basis of careful reading
        (iv)    use empirical evidence and sensible criteria to support their analyses
        (v)     go beyond labeling, to see how their analyses fit into wider understandings of their research area
        (vi)    share ideas and test out analyses with colleagues
        (vii)   respect the data they collect, and ensure that they are distributed and archived properly
        (viii)  respect the rights and expectations of the people they work with.

And if you do decide to enrol..

I recommend you read Oesten Dahl's "How to avoid graduation"... and Monica Macaulay's "How to write like a linguist".
Macaulay has a book coming out  Surviving Linguistics: A Guide for Students. Cascadilla Press, which will be helpful
(although again, directed at American students).

If you decide to apply for a job teaching linguistics later, here is some advice on applying for jobs in the US,
much of which holds for Australia too.



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Research students

Current

Adam Blaxter Paliwala     [work on Tok Pisin]

Joe Blythe             [work on Murrinh Patha; co-supervisors Michael Walsh and  Linda Barwick]

Winnie Chor           [working on grammaticalisation in Cantonese].  Co-supervisor Derek Herforth.

Chong Han            [working on metaphors associated with gender in Chinese magazines].  Co-supervisor Derek Herforth.

Amanda Oppliger             [work on Aboriginal  language in the Sydney area; co-supervisor Michael Walsh]

Recently submitted:

Carmel O'Shannessy   [submitted]:  Language contact and children’s bilingual acquisition: learning a mixed language and Warlpiri in northern Australia
                                    co-supervisors Melissa Bowerman and Penelope Brown]


 and I am also working on the ACLA project with Samantha Disbray, Felicity Meakins and Karin Moses, who are PhD students at the University of Melbourne, supervised by Gillian Wigglesworth.



Completed doctoral theses by students I have supervised or co-supervised [unless otherwise stated, these are from the University of Sydney]

Robert Amery. 1998. Warrabarna Kaurna: reclaiming Aboriginal languages from written historical sources : Kaurna case study. PhD. University of Adelaide.  Peter Mühlhäusler, main supervisor. Since published as:  2000. Warrabarna Kaurna! : reclaiming an Australian language: Multilingualism and linguistic diversity. Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.

I Wayan Arka. 1998. From morphosyntax to pragmatics in Balinese : a lexical-functional approach. PhD. Bill Foley, main supervisor.  Since published as: 2004. Balinese morphosyntax : a lexical-functional approach. Pacific Linguistics 547. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Brett J. Baker. 1999. Word structure in Ngalakgan. PhD. Toni  Borowsky and Mark Harvey, main supervisors. See also downloadable thesis.

Lynn Berry. 1998. Alignment and adjacency in optimality theory : evidence from Warlpiri and Arrernte. PhD. Toni Borowsky, main supervisor.

Lea Brown. 2001. A grammar of Nias Selatan. PhD. Bill Foley, main supervisor.

Chris Cleirígh. 1998. A selectionist model of the genesis of phonic texture : systemic phonology and universal Darwinism. PhD. Christian Matthiessen, co-supervisor.

Bronwen Dyson. 2004  Developmental style in second language processing:  A study of inter-learner variation in the acquisition of English as a Second language.  University of Western Sydney. Main supervisor Stuart Campbell. 

Johnson Welem Haan. 2001. The grammar of Adang : a Papuan language spoken on the Island of Alor, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. PhD. Bill Foley, main supervisor.   downloadable thesis

Arlene Harvey. 1997. Equivalence and depersonalisation in definitions : an exploration of lexicogrammatical and rhetorical patterns in English technical discourse. PhD. Christian Matthiessen, co-supervisor.

Jason Clift Johnston. 1996. Systematic homonymy and the structure of morphological categories : some lessons from paradigm geometry. PhD. Avery Andrews, co-supervisor.

Barbara Jones. 2002. A grammar of Wangkajunga : a language of the Great Sandy Desert of north Western Australia. PhD. Michael Walsh, co-supervisor.
 
Caroline Lipovsky. 2005.    Negotiating solidarity: a social-linguistic approach to job interviews.  Co-supervisors Alice Caffarel and Jim Martin.
                              
Alison Mackey. 1995. Stepping up the pace : input, interaction and interlanguage development - an empirical study of questions in ESL. PhD. Patsy Lightbown, co-supervisor.

Ikuko Nakane. 2003. Silence in Japanese-Australian classroom interaction : perceptions and performance. PhD. Ingrid Piller, main supervisor.

Nicholas Riemer. 1999. A study of semantic extension of percussion/impact verbs in English and Warlpiri. PhD. Michael Walsh, co-supervisor. Reviewed by William McGregor, Glot, 5:9/10.   Since published. 2005. The semantics of polysemy: reading meaning in English and Warlpiri Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Nicoletta Romeo. 2004. Aspect in Burmese : meaning and function. PhD. Bill Foley, main supervisor.

Yoshiko Sheard. 1994. Scrambling and subject-licensing in Japanese. PhD. Australian National University, Canberra. Avery Andrews, main supervisor.   Reviewed by Craig Thiersch, Glot, 4.1.

Takahiro Teranishi. 2003. Concept formation through iconicity : basic shapes and their related metaphorical extensions in English and Japanese. PhD. Hugh Clarke, co-supervisor.

Myfany Turpin. 2005.       Form and meaning of Akwelye: a Kaytetye women’s song series from Central Australia  Linda Barwick, co-supervisor.


Completed master theses by students I have supervised or co-supervised

I Wayan Arka. 1994. Morpholexical aspects of the -kan causative in Indonesian. MPhil. Bill Foley, co-supervisor.

Gréte Dalmi. 1995. Hungarian infinitival constructions. MPhil. Bill Foley, co-supervisor.

Philippa Horton. 2000. Determiners and Complementizers in Cook Islands Maori. MPhil.

Sarah Lee. 2001. [Hokkien causatives]. MPhil.

Pamela Leung. 1994. Conjunctive relations in Chinese. MPhil. James Martin, co-supervisor.

Luh Hsyng Nelson. 1994. Compound causatives in Chinese. MLitt.

William Palmer. 1992. Commonality and distinctiveness: towards a theory of morphemics. MPhil.

Mark Richards. 1994. Developing language teaching materials for Mangarrayi. MPhil.

Sukarno. 1994. Passive forms and their constraints in Bahasa Indonesia. MLitt.

I Nyoman Udayana. 1994. Reflexives in Bahasa Indonesia. MLitt.


Previous Honours students (supervised or co-supervised) include:
Corinne Bannister, Stephen Bouwens, Miriam Corris, Renee Errey, Dylan Glynn, Kumara Henadeerage, Clair Hill, Stephen Hill, Tom Honeyman, Jacob Horowitz, Andrew Ingram, Olivia Lau, James McElvenny,  Simon Musgrave, Cassy Nancarrow, Susheela Peres da Costa, Stephanie Roberts, Vera Scurr, Stephen Wilson


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Address questions or comments to jhs AT mail.usyd.edu.au
Copyright © 1995-2006.
Last modified: 30 July, 2006