Yiming Liang

Postdoctoral researcher | Department of Linguistics | Universiteit Gent

About me

I am a postdoctoral researcher in linguistics at Universiteit Gent (Ghent, Belgium), affiliated with the ERC Causality project led by Alexandra Simonenko. My current focus is on the investigation of causal relationships among various diachronic changes in the morpho-syntax of West Germanic languages.

I completed my PhD in Linguistics from Université Paris Cité (Paris, France) and Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle (LLF), under the supervision of Heather Burnett and Pascal Amsili. My thesis, funded by the ERC SMIC project (PI: Heather Burnett), employed generative syntax and information theory to explain preferential patterns in morpho-syntactic variation in oral French.

My research focuses on language variation and change, using quantitative methods to analyze frequency patterns in empirical linguistic data across diachronic and synchronic perspectives, and adopting processing accounts (especially those related to Information Theory) and syntax theory to explain the mechanisms behind them.

Proficient in Python programming, statistical analysis, and machine learning, I am interested in integrating language models (such as GPT and BERT) and multilingual neural parsers into the study of language variation and change, developing metrics to quantify linguistic notions such as morphological syncretism and syntactic similarity, and creating tools that support the automatic processing of linguistic data.

Below is an example using bigram models to estimate the information density (approximated by surprisal) of a complement clause (CC) given the main verb as context. The results show that when the CC is highly predictable, speakers tend to omit que to raise information density toward the average. When the CC is highly unpredictable, speakers prefer to realize que to lower information density toward the average. This suggests that que-omission functions as a strategy to avoid peaks and troughs in the information-density profile, supporting the Uniform Information Density hypothesis.

Omission of "que" (red line) brings the information density at the beginning of complement clause (CC) closer to the average, in contrast with the version with "que" (blue line). The omission of "que" is predicted to be preferred when the information density at the beginning of CC is low, as the omission of "que" avoids the trough in the information density profile of the sentence.

Omission of "que" (red line) deviates the information density at the beginning of CC from the average, compared with the version with "que" (blue line). The omission of "que" is predicted to be dispreferred when the information density at the beginning of CC is high, as the realization of "que" avoids the peak in the information density profile of the sentence.

Liang et al. (2021)

Publications

Liang, Y., Burnett, H. & Amsili, P. (in press). The Polarity Effect in Future Temporal Reference: new insights from Parisian French. Revue canadienne de linguistique/Canadian Journal of Linguistics.

Liang, Y., Amsili, P. & Burnett, H. (2025). Soft Locality Restrictions in Negative Concord: Evidence from the French Future Polarity Effect. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 43, 1731-1769. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-024-09650-4

Liang, Y., Donati C., & Burnett H. (2024). French Subject Doubling: A Third Path. RLLT23, eds. Lisa Brunetti, Ioana Chitoran & Alexandru Mardale. Special Issue of Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, 10(7)/12, 1-29. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.420

Liang, Y., Amsili, P., Burnett, H. & Demberg, V. (2024). Uniform information density explains subject doubling in French. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/645673fs

Liang, Y., Amsili, P. & Burnett, H. (2023). Uniformité de la densité informationnelle : le cas du redoublement du sujet. In Actes de la 30e Conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN), volume 1 : travaux de recherche originaux – articles longs, pp. 164–176. https://aclanthology.org/2023.jeptalnrecital-long.13

Liang, Y., Amsili, P. & Burnett, H. (2021). New ways of analyzing complementizer drop in Montréal French: Exploration of cognitive factors. Language Variation and Change, 33(3), 359-385. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394521000223

Chen, S., Amsili, P., & Liang, Y. (2021). Inter-clausal Anaphora in Chinese Conditionals: a Multi-factorial Analysis. In Hu, K., Kim, J. B., Zong, C., & Chersoni, E. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 35th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation (pp. 140-148). arXiv: https://aclanthology.org/2021.paclic-1.15

Presentations

Oral presentations

Liang, Y. & Simonenko, A. (2024). “Quantify syncretism in subject-verb agreement marking”. New Ways of Analyzing Variation 52 (NWAV52), October 7th-9th, 2024, Miami Beach, United States.

Liang, Y., Amsili, P., Burnett, H. & Demberg, V. (2024). “Uniform information density explains subject doubling in French”. The 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (Cogsci), July 24th-27th, 2024, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. (acceptance rate for talks: 19%)

Liang, Y., Donati, C. & Burnett, H. (2023). “French clitics: A paradox from variation”. Workshop on Variation and Syntactic Theory at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 51 (NWAV 51), October 14th, 2023, New York, United States.

Liang, Y., Amsili, P. & Burnett, H. (2023). “Uniformité de la densité informationnelle : le cas du redoublement du sujet (The Uniform Information Density Hypothesis: the case of subjet-doubling in French).” Traitement automatique des langues naturelles (TALN) 2023, June 5th-9th, Paris, France.

Liang, Y., Donati, C. & Burnett, H. (2023). “French Subject Doubling: A Third Path.” 53rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL 53), June 26th–30th, 2023, Paris, France.

Martin, A., Abbou, J., Dénigot, Q., Liang, Y. & Burnett, H. (2022). “The power of the written word: A re-analysis of the social meanings of variable liaison.” Sociolinguistics Symposium 24, July 13th–16th, 2022, Ghent, Belgium.

Martin, A., Liang, Y., Abbou, J., Dénigot, Q., Amsili, P. & Burnett H. (2021). “Tu n’utiliseras pas le futur proche: a corpus and experimental study of the effect of polarity on future variation in Metropolitan French.” New Ways of Analyzing Variation 49 (NWAV49), October 19th-24th, 2021, Austin, United States (online).

Liang, Y., Amsili, P. & Burnett H. (2021). “Exploring the polarity effect on future variation in Parisian French.” UK Language Variation and Change 13 (UKLVC13), September 8th-10th, 2021, Glasgow, United Kingdom (online).

Chen, S., Liang, Y. & Amsili, P. (2021). “Chinese Inter-clausal Anaphora in Conditionals: A Mixed Effects Logistic Regression Study.” 34th Journées de Linguistique Asie Orientale (JLAO34), July 7th-9th, 2021, Paris, France (online).

Liang, Y., Amsili, P. & Burnett H. (2021). “Revisiter l'omission du complémenteur que en français montréalais: exploration de facteurs cognitifs.” Annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association 2021, June 4th-7th, 2021, Canada (online).

Posters

Liang, Y., Abbou, J., Amsili, P., Dénigot, Q., Martin, A., & Burnett, H. (2022). “Soft Intervention Effects in Sociolinguistic Variation''. Poster presented at Generative Linguistics in the Old World 45 (GLOW45), April 27th–29th, 2022, London, United Kingdom.

Liang, Y., Amsili, P. & Burnett H. (2019). “Faut je t'apporte quelque chose: Complementizer drop in Quebec French''. Poster presented at Colloque de Syntaxe et Sémantique à Paris 19 (CSSP19), October 2nd-4th, 2019, Paris, France. [PDF]

Chen, S., Yuan, C. & Liang, Y. (2019). “Interclausal Anaphora in Chinese: The Case of Conditional and Causal Sentences''. Poster presented at Summer School Conditionals in Paris – logic, linguistics and psychology, June 3rd-7th, 2019, Inalco, Paris, France.

Teaching

Fall 2025

Lecturer for English Linguistics: Generative Grammar, Department of Linguistics, Universiteit Gent, Ghent, Belgium

Postgraduate-level course
6 lectures in Generative Syntax and 5 lectures in Formal Semantics
Taught in English

Fall 2024

Co-lecturer for English Linguistics: Generative Grammar, Department of Linguistics, Universiteit Gent, Ghent, Belgium

Postgraduate-level course (co-lecturing with Professor Alexandra Simonenko)
6 lectures in Generative Syntax
Taught in English

Fall 2022

Teaching assistant for LING101: Introduction to Linguistics, Department of Cognitive Sciences, Cogmaster, École Normale Supérieure/EHESS/Univeristé Paris Cité, Paris, France

Postgraduate-level course (lecture led by Professor Salvador Mascarenhas) [syllabus]
Led weekly discussion sessions, grading, office hours
Taught in English

Fall 2021

Teaching assistant for Semantics, Department of Linguistics, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France

Undergraduate-level course (lecture led by Professor Lucia M. Tovena)
Led weekly discussion sessions, grading, designed quizzes
Taught in French

Get in touch

If you wish to get in touch with me regarding my research or potential collaborations, please feel free to contact me at the following address:

flavie.liang at gmail.com

yiming.liang at ugent.be

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