Randy John LaPolla () is a professor and former Head of Division at th
Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
in

Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1981, it is also the second oldest autonomous university in the country. The university is organised across numerous colleges and schools, includi ...

. He is also a Fellow of the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australi ...

, elected 2008. He is currently Professor of Linguistics at the Center for Language Sciences at

Beijing Normal University Beijing Normal University (BNU) () is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education of China, and co-funded by the Ministry of Education and the B ...

Zhuhai Zhuhai; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Jyūhói''; Chinese postal romanization, also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern ...

campus, and Associate Fellow of CLASS,

. LaPolla has done research in various areas of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. He has worked on the typology and morphosyntactic patterns of

Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

, examined methodology for carrying out linguistic work in these languages and also done

language documentation Language documentation (also: documentary linguistics) is a subfield of linguistics which aims to describe the grammar and use of human languages. It aims to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speec ...

in Qiang and Dulong/Rawang. He is well known as the author of a

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

of Qiang (LaPolla and Huang 2003) and as the coauthor of

Van Valin A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or ...

and LaPolla (1997), a major work in Role and Reference Grammar. As a doctoral student at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, LaPolla was part of

James Matisoff James Alan Matisoff ( zh, , t=馬蒂索夫, s=马蒂索夫, p=Mǎdìsuǒfū or zh, , t=馬提索夫, s=马提索夫, p=Mǎtísuǒfū; born July 14, 1937) is an American linguist. He is a professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Cal ...

's STEDT project. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1990 at the

. He was first a researcher at the

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, ; zh, t=中央研究院) is the national academy of the Taiwan, Republic of China. It is headquartered in Nangang District, Taipei, Nangang, Taipei. Founded in Nanjing, the academy supports research activities in mathemat ...

from 1990 to 1998, then was an associate professor at the

City University of Hong Kong The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a public research university in Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and formally established as the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 ...

from 1996 to 2004. From 2004 to 2012 he was the Chair of Linguistics (Chair Professor) at

La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora, Victoria, Bundoora. The university was established in 1 ...

. A Cheung Kong Scholar from 2005 to 2008, he also led the Australian Linguistic Society as its President from 2007 to 2009.

Selected publications

*''A Grammar of Qiang, with Annotated Texts and Glossary'' (Mouton Grammar Library 31), by Randy J. LaPolla, with Chenglong Huang. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 445 + xvii pp., Dec. 2003 (). *''The Sino-Tibetan Languages'' (Routledge Language Family Series 3), edited by Graham Thurgood & Randy J. LaPolla. London & New York: Routledge, 727 + xxii pp., Jan. 2003 (). Paperback version released April 2007 (). *Rawang Texts, with Grammatical Analysis and English Translation, by Randy J. LaPolla & Dory Poa. Muenchen: LINCOM EUROPA, December 2001 (). *''Syntax: Structure, Meaning, and Function'' (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics Series), by Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. & Randy J. LaPolla. Cambridge University Press, 1997 ().

References

External links

Personal web pageLaPolla's academia.edu page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lapolla, Randy Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Linguists from Australia Linguists of Sino-Tibetan languages UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni