Dr Aashild Naess

Biography

I completed an MA in linguistics at the University of Oslo in 1998; my MA thesis was a sketch grammar of a previously undescribed Polynesian language of the Solomon Islands. I then went on to do a PhD in linguistics at the University of Nijmegen, completed 2004; a revised version of my dissertation was published under the title "Prototypical Transitivity" by John Benjamins in 2007. I have since held postdoctoral positions at the University of Oslo and the University of Nijmegen, and a Visiting Professorship at the University of Zürich. I have been employed as Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Newcastle since January 2012.

Qualifications

• PhD (Linguistics), University of Nijmegan - The Netherlands, 2004
• Cand Philol (Equiv MRes), University of Oslo - Norway, 1998
• Cand Magisterii (Equiv Bachelor Deg), University of Oslo - Norway, 1996

Research

Research keywords

• Language contact
• Language documentation and description
• Linguistic typology
• Oceanic languages

Research expertise

I specialise in linguistic typology and language documentation/description. In typology, my main research interest have so far been in the notion of transitivity as a crosslinguistic category, and in the crosslinguistic properties of case marking; most recently on how case-marking is linked to the marking of pragmatic properties in language. I have also published research on verb serialisation and complex verb forms, and on how these are linked to the conceptualisation of complex events.

I have done linguistic fieldwork on two languages spoken in the eastern Solomon Islands, Vaeakau-Taumako (Pileni) and Äiwoo. In 2011 I published a reference grammar of Vaeakau-Taumako, co-authored with Even Hovdhaugen. My work on Äiwoo was instrumental in resolving a decades-long debate about the origin of the so-called Reefs-Santa Cruz languages; they are now generally accepted to belong to the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. I have also studied the language-contact situation between Äiwoo and Vaeakau-Taumako, and the mechanisms through which lexical and structural borrowing has taken place between these languages.

Collaboration

I am an affiliated partner with the research project "“Evolution of Semantic Systems” at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen.

I maintain informal collaborative links with a number of colleagues at various institutions, including the Australian National University, the University of Oslo, the University of Zürich, and the LACITO research centre in Paris.

Languages

• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• French
• Norwegian
• Pacific Austronesian Languages
• Scandinavian
• Solomon Islands Pijin

Memberships

Body relevant to professional practice.

• Member - Association for Linguistic Typology
• Member - Linguistic Society of America

Editorial Board.

• Member - Linguistics (journal)

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Introduction to Linguistics
• Language documentation and description
• Typology