Dr Patrizia Pacioni

I began working on linguistics and Southeast Asian languages since my BA in Rome where I wrote a final dissertation on the role of classifiers in Southeast Asian Languages with a particular focus on Khmer/Cambodian after years abroad at the INALCO and some fieldwork. I then did an MA on Oriental linguistics in Paris and a PhD on specificity and classifiers in Cantonese in Australia. I also attended advanced courses in various countries to further my education on relevant subjects. I taught linguistics at universities in Hong Kong and in the UK. More recently I taught seminars on Khmer, and Chinese linguistics in Italy. I wrote a book on classifiers in Cantonese and various articles. I presented my research in several conferences in Asia and in the West since my MA and (co-)organized international conferences.

My research combines empirical data and theoretical linguistic explanation on Khmer/Cambodian, Southeast Asian Languages, Cantonese, and Chinese linguistics: noun phrases structure, classifiers, possessives constructions, differential object marking/scrambling, relative clauses, complementisers, definiteness, specificity, genericity, plurality, modality, sentence final particles.