Elisabeth Norcliffe

Elisabeth Norcliffe is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, affiliated with the 'Culture, Language & Cognition' research group. Her work focuses on linguistic typology, psycholinguistics, and language documentation, particularly in Mayan, Papuan, and Andean languages. She investigates cross-linguistic variation in perception verbs, sentence processing mechanisms, and the interplay between grammatical structures and cognitive processes. Her fellowship supports studies on cross-modal semantic associations in perception lexicons.

Her research spans experimental approaches to language production and comprehension, including eye-tracking studies in Tseltal (Mayan) and Tagalog, as well as collaborative projects on Yélî Dnye (PNG) and Ecuadorian Quichua. She also documents endangered Barbacoan languages like Guambiano, exploring grammatical categories such as egophoricity and evidentiality. Norcliffe's work bridges cognitive science, typology, and historical linguistics, with contributions to understanding universal and language-specific cognitive patterns.

Key areas of interest include perception verb semantics, syntactic variation in speech planning, and the role of cross-linguistic research in advancing linguistic theory. Her awards include the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. Collaborative efforts involve global teams studying diverse languages to uncover fundamental principles of human language structure and use.