Lisa Cheng
Professor General Linguistics
- Name
- Prof.dr. L.L. Cheng
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 2104
- l.l.cheng@hum.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0002-0350-5640
Lisa Cheng is Professor of General Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Her research interests centre upon comparative syntax, and the interactions between syntax and semantics, syntax and prosody, as well as syntax and processing. She is a co-founder of the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC). Since 2017, she is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
More information about Lisa Cheng
News
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From Azerbaijani to Swedish: ‘Multilingualism improves your understanding of others’ -
Lisa Cheng appointed new Scientific Director of LUCL -
A look at music in the brain at the LIBC public symposium -
Three Leiden professors appointed members of KNAW -
Lisa Cheng elected as member of the Academia Europaea -
Vrije Competitie Grant for Lisa Cheng and Anikó Liptak
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Two Vrije Competitie Grants for LUCL researchers
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2012 Regional Chairship Lisa Cheng
PhD students
Fields of interests
- Comparative syntax
- syntax-semantics interface
- typology
- Chinese syntax
- syntax-phonology interface
- Bantu syntax
Research
What I find intriguing in language is the fact that languages can be superficially so different but at the same time so similar. This can be seen not only across dialects of a particular language (for example Chinese dialects), but also across language barriers (such as Basque vs. Dutch). The central questions of my research thus center upon the how’s and why’s of language variation. The answers to these questions can only be found by studying language as a system, and by doing interdisciplinary research on the brain.
Main research Projects
| 2015-2019 | Ellipsis licensing beyond syntax. Prinpcipal Investigator with co-investigator Anikó Lipták. | NWO |
| 2014-2018 | Understanding Questions. Principal Investigator with co-investigator Jenny Doetjes. | NWO |
| 2014-2019 | Advancing the European Multilingual Experience (AThEME). Principal Investigator. | FP7 European Commission |
| 2004-2008 | Research grant on the Word order and Morphological Marking in Bantu. Principal Investigator with co-investigator Thilo Schadenberg. | NWO |
Awards
- Member Academia Europaea
- LSA Fellow
- Member KNAW
Curriculum Vitae
I obtained my PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991, with the dissertation entitled On the typology of wh-questions. I was assistant and associate professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Irvine from 1991 to 2000, before taking up the professor position in Leiden University. For more information please see my CV.
Teaching activities & supervision
I teach syntax and syntax-semantics interface at both the undergraduate and the graduate level in the BA and MA linguistics programmes. I have supervised over 20 PhD students. Below is a partial list.
| Yang Yang (2018) | The two sides of wh-indeterminates in Mandarin |
| Marieke Meelen (2016) | Why Jesus and Job spoke bad Welsh: the origin and distribution of V2 orders in Middle Welsh |
| Hongyuan Sun (2014) | Time reference and bare predicates in Mandarin Chinese |
| Chin-hui Lin (2014) | Utterance final particles in Taiwan Mandarin: contact, context, and core functions |
| Kristina Riedel (2009) | The Syntax of object marking in Sambaa. A comparative Bantu perspective |
| Jenneke van der Wal (2009) | Word order and information structure in Makhuwa-Enahara |
| Martin Salzmann (2006) | Resumptive prolepsis: a study in A’-indirect dependencies |
| Joanna Sio (2006) | Reference and modification in Chinese |
| Anikó Lipták (2001) | On the Syntax of Wh-items in Hungarian |
Professor General Linguistics
- Faculty of Humanities
- Leiden Univ Centre for Linguistics
- LUCL Taalwetenschap
- Raad van Advies