Lisa Christine Matthewson is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at University of British Columbia with specialties in pragmatics and semantics.[1] She has also done significant work with semantic fieldwork and in the preservation and oral history of First Nations languages, especially St'át'imcets and Gitksan.[2] Matthewson's appointment at UBC was notable because she was the first female full professor in the department's history.[3]
Biography
Matthewson received her BA and MA from Victoria University of Wellington. She received her PhD in linguistics from the University of British Columbia in 1996.[4] In 1998, her PhD thesis, "Determiner Systems and Quantificational Strategies: Evidence from Salish," was awarded the E. W. Beth Dissertation Prize,[5] given to outstanding PhD theses in the fields of Logic, Language, and Information.
Matthewson also co-developed the Totem Field Storyboards project, which seeks to gather linguistic information from speakers without direct interviews.[9][10]
Key publications
Matthewson, Lisa 1999. On the Interpretation of Wide-Scope Indefinites. Natural Language Semantics 7:79-134.
Matthewson, Lisa 2001. Quantification and the Nature of Cross-Linguistic Variation.Natural Language Semantics 9:145-189.
Matthewson, Lisa 2004. On the Methodology of Semantic Fieldwork. International Journal of American Linguistics 70:369-415.
Schaeffer, Jeannette and Lisa Matthewson 2005. Grammar and Pragmatics in the Acquisition of Article Systems. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 23:53-101.
Matthewson, Lisa 2006. Temporal Semantics in a Supposedly Tenseless Language.Linguistics and Philosophy 29:673-713.
Matthewson, Lisa, Hotze Rullmann and Henry Davis 2007. Evidentials as Epistemic Modals: Evidence from St’at’imcets. The Linguistic Variation Yearbook 7.
von Fintel, Kai and Lisa Matthewson 2008. Universals in Semantics. The Linguistic Review 25(1-2):139-201.
Rullmann, Hotze, Lisa Matthewson and Henry Davis 2008. Modals as Distributive Indefinites. Natural Language Semantics 16:317-357.
Bochnak, Ryan and Lisa Matthewson (eds.) 2015. Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burton, Lisa and Strang Burton 2015. Targeted Construction Storyboards in Semantic Fieldwork. In R. Bochnak and L. Matthewson (eds.), Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 135–156.