Sonja RIESBERG  

Associate Researcher at CNRS

Research topics

Syntax/morpho-syntax; (symmetrical voice systems of) western Austronesia; Papuan languages (especially TNG);

language documentation and description; community involvement and capacity building (in collaboration with CELD in West Papua, Indonesia)

Research projects

As co-Principle Investigator :

• Prominence related structures in symmetrical voice systems and Papuan languages (with Nikolaus P. Himmelmann), in the collaborative research center Prominence in Language (SFB 1252). German Research Foundation, 2021-2024.
• Cross-linguistic patterns in the encoding of three participant events – investigating BRING and TAKE (with Birgit Hellwig and Anna Margetts). Volkswagen Foundation, 2017-2020.
• Documentation Summits in the Central Mountains of Papua (with Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and Volker Heeschen). DoBeS, Volkswagen Foundation, 2012-2016.

As Associate Researcher :

• Prominence related structures in western Austronesian symmetrical voice languages (Principle Investigator: Nikolaus P. Himmelmann), in the collaborative research center Prominence in Language (SFB 1252). German Research Foundation, 2017-2020.
• PAGE: Prosodic entrainment in conversational interaction across diverse languages (Principle Investigator: Jonathan Harrington). Volkswagen Fondation, 2013-2015.
• Capacity building on a local and national level: Documenting Totoli, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia (Principle Investigator: Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, Hasan Basri, and Wayan Pastika). DoBeS, Volkswagen Foundation, 2005-2011.

Keywords

Austronesian, Papuan (Trans-New Guinea), language documentation, morpho-syntax, discourse structure, information structure

Publications

Monographs

• 2014 Sonja Riesberg. Symmetrical voice and linking in western Austronesian Languages (Pacific Linguistics 646). Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Edited Books

• 2022   Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg, and Birgit Hellwig. Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective (Typological Studies in Language). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• 2021   Sonja Riesberg, in collaboration with Carmen Dawuda, Lucas Haiduck, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, and Kurt Malcher. A Yali (Angguruk) – English – German dictionary. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics.
• 2018   Sonja Riesberg, Asako Shiohara, and Atsuko Utsumi. Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages. Berlin: Language Science Press. Reviews in: Language; Linguistic Typology; Oceanic Linguistics
• 2017   Sonja Riesberg, in collaboration with Carmen Dawuda, Lucas Haiduck, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, and Kurt Malcher. Wörterbuch Yali (Angguruk) – Deutsch (Dictionary Yali (Angguruk) – German). Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics.

Recent Journal Articles and book chapters

• to appear   Sonja Riesberg. Documenting (and describing) the languages of Eastern Indonesia – past, present, and future. In Abby Cohn, Tom Conners, and Yanti (eds.), Indonesian Languages and Linguistics: State of the field.
• to appear   Paul Kroeger and Sonja Riesberg. Voice and transitivity. In Alexander Adelaar and Antoinette Schapper (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Malayo-Polynesian languages of South East Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• 2022   Maria Bardají i Farré, Sonja Riesberg, and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. Limited-control predicates in western Austronesia: stative, dynamic, or none of the above? Oceanic Linguistics, 61(1).
• 2022   Birgit Hellwig, Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg, and Melanie Schippling. Bringing and taking: A cross-linguistic perspective on caused accompanied motion events. In Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg, and Birgit Hellwig (eds.), Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective (Typological Studies in Language). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• 2022   Sonja Riesberg. The expression of directed CAM events in Yali, a non-Austronesian language of New Guinea. In Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg, and Birgit Hellwig (eds.), Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective (Typological Studies in Language). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• 2022   Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and Sonja Riesberg. Expressions of directed caused accompanied motion events in Totoli, a western Austronesian language of Indonesia. In Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg, and Birgit Hellwig (eds.), Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective. (Typological Studies in Language). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• 2022   Margetts, Anna, Katharina Haude, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, Dagmar Jung, Sonja Riesberg, Stefan Schnell, Frank Seifart, Harriet Sheppard, and Claudia Wegener. Cross-linguistic patterns in the lexicalization of bring and take. Studies in Language.
• 2021   Sonja Riesberg, Kurt Malcher, and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. The many ways of transitivization in Totoli. In Silvia Luraghi and Elisa Roma (eds.), Valency over time: Diachronic perspectives on valency patterns and valency orientation. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
• 2021   Sonja Riesberg, Maria Bardají i Farré, Kurt Malcher, and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. Predicting voice choice in  symmetrical voice languages. All the things that do not work for Totoli. Studies in Language 46(2), 453 – 516.
• 2021   Sonja Riesberg. Introduction to the Yali – English – German dictionary with a short grammatical sketch. In Sonja Riesberg et al. (eds), A Yali (Angguruk) – English – German dictionary. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics.
• 2020   Sonja Riesberg, Janina Kalbertodt, Stefan Baumann, and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. Using Rapid Prosody Transcription to probe little-known prosodic systems: The case of Papuan Malay. Laboratory Phonology:  Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology 11(1): 8, pp. 1–35.
• 2019   Sonja Riesberg, Kurt Malcher, and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. How universal is agent first? Evidence from symmetrical voice languages. Language 95.3,523-561.
• 2019   Sonja Riesberg. ‘Fern leaf, so you are challenging me?’ Some observations on the Lelegesan, a form of verbal combating in Totoli. In Anthony Jukes, Asako Shiohara, and Yanti (eds.) Special genres in and around Indonesia. NUSA 66, 83-96.
• 2018   Sonja Riesberg. Reflections on descriptive and documentary adequacy. In Bradley McDonnell, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker, and Gary Holton (eds.), Reflections on language documentation 20 Years after Himmelman 1998. Language Documentation and Conservation, Special Publication 15, 151-156.
• 2018   Sonja Riesberg. Optional ergative, agentivity, and discourse prominence – Evidence form Yali (TNG). Linguistic Typology 22.1, 17-50.
• 2018   Sonja Riesberg, Janina Kalbertodt, Stefan Baumann & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. On the perception of prosodic prominences and boundaries in Papuan Malay. In Sonja Riesberg, Asako Shiohara & Atsuko Utsumi (eds.), Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages, 389–414. Berlin: Language Science Press

Documentation Corpora

• 2012-2019   Sonja Riesberg, Kristian Walianggen & Siegfried Zöllner. DoBeS Documentation Summits in the Central Mountains of Papua. The Language Archive MPI Nijmegen.
• 2012-2016   Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and Sonja Riesberg. The DoBeS Summits-PAGE Collection of Papuan Malay. The Language Archive MPI Nijmegen.
• 1979-2015    Volker Heeschen, Yakob Bolmerin, Eneneas Mayo, Laik Malyo, Enus Nabyal, Filipus Nabyal, Sonja Riesberg & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, A Documentation of Eipo. The Language Archiv MPI Nijmegen.
• 1979-2013    Volker Heeschen, Lewi Dibul, Songsonga Dibul, Silas Dibul, Musa Dibul, Sonja Riesberg & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann), A Documentation of The Yale (Kosarek) Language. The Language Archiv MPI Nijmegen.
• 2005-2010   Claudia Leto, Winarno S. Alamudi, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, Janni Kuhnt-Saptodewo, Sonja Riesberg & Hasan Basri, DoBeS Totoli Documentation. The Language Archive MPI Nijmegen.

Publications available in HAL

Recent talks and presentations

• 1st Jul 2021        (Stefan Schnell & Sonja Riesberg) Referential choice in transitive clauses in Austronesian. 15th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Olomouc, Czech Republic. 28.06.-02.03.2021.
• 25th Jun 2021    (invited panel talk, with Yusuf Sawaki) Collaborative research and documentation efforts at the Centre of Endangered Languages Documentation. AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies, Michigan. 22.06.-26.06.2021.
• 10th Jun 2021    (with Nikolaus P. Himmelmann) Polygramma-ticalization of the Yali sequential medial verb marker –lug. 13th International Austronesian and Papuan languages and linguistics conference, Edinburgh. 10.-12.06.2021.
• 7th Oct 2020    (invited talk, with Maria Bardají and Katherine Walker) Corpus annotation and discourse studies with language documentation corpora. Masyarakat Linguistik Indonesia (Linguistic Society of Indonesia), Keals Daring 2020.
• 19th Jun 2020  (Stefan Schnell & Sonja Riesberg) Building the meaning of CAUSED POSSESSION – the case of Vera’a (Oceanic) and Yali (Trans-New Guinea). 12th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference, Oslo. 18.-20.06.2020.
• 20th Jun 2020  (Sonja Riesberg, Kurt Malcher, Maria Bardají, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann) Voice choice in Totoli discourse. 12th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference, Oslo. 18.-20.06.2020.
• 16th Feb 2020  (invited panel talk) Documenting and describing the languages of Eastern Indonesia – past, present, and future. Indonesian Languages and Linguistics (Inlila): State of the field. Atma Jaya University, Jakarta. 16.-18.02.2020.
• 11th Dec 2019  Coverb constructions in Papua – how much ‘lexicon’, how much ‘grammar’? Current Trends in Papuan Linguistics, INALCO, Paris, France, 10.-11.12.2019.
• 7th Sep 2019    Expressions of caused accompanied motion events in Yali, a Papuan language of Indonesia. The 2019 International Conference on the Austronesian and Papuan Worlds, Universitas Udayana, Denpasar, Indonesia, 06.-08.09.2019.
• 17th Jul 2019    Expressions of caused accompanied motion events in Yali. Workshop on the Languages of Papua, Universitas Papua, Manokwari, Indonesia, 16.-18.07.2019.
• 13th Jun 2019   (Maria Bardají, Sonja Riesberg & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann), Potentive and stative voice alternations in western Austronesian languages. 11th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference, Leiden. 13.-15.06.2019.
• 13th Jun 2019   (Anna Margetts et al.) BRING and TAKE. Caused accompanied motion events in Austronesian languages. 11th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference, Leiden. 13.-15.07.2019.
• 27th May 2019   Some parameters probably relevant when working towards a typology of co-verb constructions in Papuan languages. Vielfaltslinguistik III, Konferenz zu Typologie und Feldforschung. Universität zu Köln, 28.-29.03.2019.
• 7th Dec 2018    (invited talk, first author, with Kurt Malcher and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann), ‘Reference tracking and voice choice in Totoli discourse’. Information Structure in Spoken Language Corpora 3: Discourse and Information Structure. Wesfälische Wilhelms-Universtiät, Münster, 7.-8.12.2018.
• 27th Oct 2018   (Malcher, Kurt, Sonja Riesberg & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann), Voice and basic valency orientation in Totoli. STAS (The shaping of transitivity and argument structure), Pavia, 25.-27.10.2018
• 15th Aug 2018   (invited key note), Coverb constructions and verb classification in Papuan languages. International Congress of the Indonesian Linguistic Society (KIMLI), Universitas Papua, Manokwari, 13.-17.08.2018.