Staff profile

Dr Stefan Schnell

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ARC DECRA Fellow

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Research Centre for Linguistic Typology

Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Area of study

Linguistics

Brief Profile

Stefan graduated from Kiel University in 2006 with a M.A. in Linguistics and Slavic studies. He was awarded his PhD in Linguistics at Kiel University in 2010. Since 2006, Stefan has been working on a multi-media documentation of the Oceanic language Vera'a (North Vanuatu) that is archived with the MPI for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. He has presented and published work on issues of Vera'a grammar, the language documentation, referentiality and animacy effects, and text-based typology.

Stefan has joined CRLD as a ARC DECRA Fellow working on a cross-corpus study of argument structure in discourse (Title: Typology of language usage: quantitative investigations on corpora from endangered languages). Stefan currently also works on the revision of the grammatical description of Vera'a for publication (see publications).  

Recent Publications

Books

  • Schnell, S. 2011. A grammar of Vera'a, an Oceanic language of North Vanuatu. Kiel University. (currently under revision for more prominent publication).

PhD thesis

  • Schnell, S. 2010. Animacy and referentiality in Vera'a. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Kiel University.

Edited volumes

  • Francois, A. / Lacrampe, S. / Schnell, S. / Franjieh, M.(eds.). proposal accepted. The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and Diffusion. In: envisaged new e-publication series Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia of Pacific Linguistics.
  • Haig, G. L. J. / Nau, N. / Schnell, S. / Wegener, C. (eds.). 2011. Documenting endangered languages: achievements and perspectives. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter. See http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/177452

Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters

  • Schnell, S. submitted1. Data from language documentations in research on referential hierarchies. In: Potentials of Language Documentation: Methods, Analyses, Utilization. Special Publication of Language Documentation and Conservation edited by Frank Seifart.
  • Schnell, S. submitted1. Referential hierarchies in three-participant constructions in Vera'a. In: Referential hierarchies in three-participant constructions. Special issue of Linguistic Discovery, in memory of Anna Siewierska edited by Eva van Lier.
  • Haig, G. L. J. / Nau, N. / Schnell, S. / Wegener, C. 2011. Introduction. In: Documenting endangered languages: achievements and perspectives edited by G. L. J. Haig et al.. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter., 1-14.
  • Haig, G. L. J. / Schnell, S. / Wegener, C. 2011. Comparing corpora from endangered language projects: Explorations in language typology based on original texts. In: Documenting endangered languages: achievements and perspectives edited by G. L. J. Haig et al.. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter., 55-86.
  • Schnell, S. 2003. '"Verba meteorologica" v russkom jazyke'. Trudy po russkoj i slavjanskoj filologii. Lingvistika., Tartu, March 2003.

Other  

  • Haig, G. L. J. / Schnell, S. 2011. Annotations using GRAID. (Grammatical Relations and Animacy in Discourse). Introduction and guidelines for annotators. Version 6.0. See: http://vc.uni-bamberg.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=9488.
  • Schnell, S. / Marc Vores / George Atkins / Purity Hope Atkin / Alban Sakius / Jack Howard / Sabine Hess): A multi-media documentation of Vera'a. Nijmegen: DOBES-MPI.

Talks

  • Schnell, S. 2012. Complex Predicates and Complex Sentences in Vera'a. Presentation at the Role and Reference Grammar workshop, Kiel University, 24th February 2012.
  • Schnell, S. 2011. Data from language documentations in research on referential hierarchies. Invited statement at the workshop Potentials of Language Documentation: Methods, Analyses, and Utilization. MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig, Nov 3-4, 2011.
  • Schnell, S. 2011. 'Pronominal reference in Vera'a discourse'. Paper presented at the International Workshop on the Languages of Vanuatu. Australian National University, Oct 20 -23, 2011.
  • Schnell, S. 2001. Morpho-syntactic annotation of texts with GRAID. Presentation at the workshop Exploiting DoBeS corpora for research in the typology of referentiality. University of Erfurt, Oct 14-15, 2011.
  • Schnell, S. 2011. Explaining differences in Referential Density. Presentation in the linguistics colloquium Linguistische Werkstatt at Bamberg University. Bamberg, June 1, 2011.
  • Schnell, S. 2011. 'Animate pronoun attraction in Vera'a three-participant constructions'. Paper presented at the Workshop on referential hierarchies in three-participant constructions., Lancaster University, May 20-22, 2011. In prep for publication in Linguistic Discovery special issue on three-participant constructions.
  • Haig, G. L. J. / Schnell, S. / Wegener, C. 2010. Animates and pronouns - a cross-corpus study of patterns in narrative discourse. Presentation at the DoBeS Workshop Nijmegen: Advances in Documentary Linguistics., Nijmegen, Oct 14 - 15, 2010.
  • Haig, G. L. J. / Schnell, S. 2009. From text to typology: towards implementing quantitative typology on corpora from endangered languages. Presentation at Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 2., SOAS London, Nov 13th - 14th, 2009.
  • Haig, G. L. J. / Schnell, S. 2009. From text to typology: towards implementing quantitative typology on corpora from endangered languages. Presentation at the DoBeS Workshop Nijmegen: Language Documentation - its role in linguistics, anthropology and language maintenance., Nijmegen, Oct 15 - 16, 2009.
  • Schnell, S. 2009. 'Documentation, analysis and writing of TAM markers in Vera'a'. Presentation at the 1st International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, March 12-14, 2009.
  • Schnell, S. 2009. PhD in linguistics on an interdisciplinary language documentation project. Presentation at the Graduate Students in Language Documentation and Conservation, workshop at the 1st International Conference on Languag Documentation and Conservation, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, March 12th-14th, 2009.
  • Schnell, S. 2008. The Benefactive-Possessive Continuum in Vera'a. Presentation at the DoBeS Workshop Nijmegen: Language Documentation Methods in Focus., Nijmegen, Jun 12th - 13th, 2008.
  • Schnell, S. 2007. The particle 'i in Vera'a, Vanua Lava. Presentation at the Emalus Linguistics Circle, Pacific Language Unit at the Emalus Campus of the University of the South Pacific, ort Vila, May 28th, 2007.
  • Schnell, S. 2006. Nominalisierung im Russischen. Slavistische Studentenkonferenz, Institut für Slavistik der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Juli 2006.

Research projects

Typology of language use: quantitative investigations of discourse from endangered languages

The project seeks to determine the impact of various factors behind long-standing observations of argument structure patterns in discourse, like DuBois' (1987, 2003) Preferred Argument Structure. It pioneers work in the emergent field of text-based typology drawing on original text data from language documentation projects. The project builds on Stefan's previous collaborative work with Geoff Haig on the GRAID annotation system, and on work with Geoff and Claudia Wegener.