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MÉNDEZ-NAYA, BELÉN

Belén Méndez-Naya obtained an MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1987 and a PhD in English Linguistics in 1995, with a dissertation, supervised by Teresa Fanego, on complementation in Old English. She has been a Senior Lecturer in English (1997-March 2023) and is currently a Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics.

Belén serves on the Editorial Boards of Folia Linguistica, SELIM, Verba: Anuario Galego de Filoloxía and EJES. From 2011 to 2016 she was the treasurer of AEDEAN, the Spanish Association for English and American Studies. She has supervised the PhD dissertations of Cristina Suárez-Gómez (2004), Fátima Faya-Cerqueiro (2013) and, jointly with Teresa Fanego, Tamara Bouso (2018) and Mario Serrano-Losada (2018). Currently she is the PhD advisor of Idoya Cancelas-León (jointly with María José López-Couso) .

Together with María José López-Couso, Belén is the PI of two projects on constructionalization carried out by the team, under funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation: FFI2017-86884-P (2018-2021; 49.610 euros plus one four-year research position) and PID2020-114604GB-100 (2021-2024; 42.350 euros plus one four-year research position).

Belén's main research interests are grammaticalization processes in the history of English, clausal complementation and mood selection in Old and Middle English, parentheticals, and the development of intensifiers and pragmatic markers in the history of English.

Belén has taught and/or carried out research at the Universities of Aachen, Glasgow, Manchester, Trier, Vigo, Edinburgh and Freiburg. She has been invited to deliver talks and plenary lectures at the Universities of A Coruña, Helsinki, Jaén, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Zurich, Seville (Universidad Pablo Olavide), Vigo (SELIM International Conference 28), La Rioja (Old English Syntax and Semantics Seminar), Mons (Belgian Association of Anglicists working in Higher Education, BAAHE), and Augsburg.

Contact information:

Department of English and German
Facultad de Filología
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, SPAIN
E-mail: belen.mendez@usc.es
Phone: +34 981563100 ext. 11902
Office: 402, fourth floor

H-index & publications:

(2023). "From chance to epistemic possibility: On the grammaticalization of happenstance expressions in English". In Context, intent and variation in grammaticalization, ed. by Hendrik De Smet, Peter Petré & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyterpp.109-134. [Second author, with María José López-Couso.] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753059-005

(2021). "From complementizing to modifying status: On the grammaticalization of the complement-taking-predicate-clauses chances are and odds are". Language Sciences 88. Special issue Complement and parenthetical constructions: Theory and description, edited by An Van linden, Lieselotte Brems & Lieven Vandelanotte. [Second author, with María José López-Couso.] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2021.101422

(2021). Review of "Rodrigo Pérez Lorido. Coordinación y elipsis en inglés antiguo. Oviedo: Ediuno - Ediciones de la Universidad de Oviedo, 2019. ISBN: 9788416343812". ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies 42: 305-310.

(2021). "Synthetic intensification devices in Old English". Journal of English Linguistics 49(2): 208-227. DOI: 10.1177/0075424221993850.

(2020), ed. Investigating stance in English: Synchrony and diachrony. Language Sciences 82 (Special issue). [Third editor, with Gunther Kaltenböck and María José López-Couso.]

(2020). "The dynamics of stance constructions". In Investigating stance in English: Synchrony and diachrony. Language Sciences 82: 1-12 (Special issue). [Third author, with Gunther Kaltenböck and María José López-Couso.] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2020.101330

(2020). "Masked by annotation: Minor declarative complementizers in parsed corpora of historical English". Research in Corpus Linguistics 8(2): 133-158. [Second author, with María José López-Couso.]

(2020). "Chances are: Enlarging the catalogue of epistemic expressions in English". In Advances in English and American Studies: Current developments, future trends, ed. by Pilar Guerrero-Medina, Macarena Palma Gutiérrez & María Valero Redondo. Córdoba: UCOPress / Editorial Universidad de Córdoba, pp. 137-147. [Second author, with María José López-Couso.]

(2020), ed. Crossing linguistic boundaries: Systemic, synchronic and diachronic variation in English. London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi & Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic, 269 pp. ISBN: 9781350053854. [Third editor, with Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, María José López-Couso & Javier Pérez-Guerra]. Reviews in: Nexus AEDEAN 2021/2: 72-75; Research in Corpus Linguistics 9/2 (2021): 185-190; English Language and Linguistics (2022, First View): 1-6.

(2020). "Introduction". In Crossing linguistic boundaries: Systemic, synchronic and diachronic variation in English, ed. by Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, María José López-Couso, Belén Méndez-Naya & Javier Pérez-Guerra. London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi & Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 1-11. [Third author, with Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, María José López-Couso & Javier Pérez-Guerra.]

(2019). "The intensifier system of the Ormulum and the interplay of micro-level and macro-level contexts in linguistic change". In Grammar - Discourse - Context, ed. by Kristin Bech & Ruth Moehlig-Falke. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 67-91. ISBN: 9788322633113. Belén Méndez-Naya reports on this research for the Medieval English (ca600-1500) in a Multilingual Context Network blog.

(2019). "Of right heirs, right idiots and bad data: The diachrony of the intensifying adjective right". Studia Neophilologica 91(3): 273-295.

(2018). "Matti Rissanen, the linguist, the friend. In Memoriam". Nexus AEDEAN 2018(2): 32-37 [second author, with María José López-Couso.]

(2018). Rodríguez-Puente, Paula / Teresa Fanego / María José López-Couso / Belén Méndez-Naya / Paloma Núñez-Pertejo / Cristina Blanco-García / Iván Tamaredo. Corpus of Historical English Law Reports 1535–1999 (CHELAR), v.2. Santiago de Compostela: Research Unit for Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalization, University of Santiago de Compostela. ISBN: 978-84-09-07633-8.

(2017). "The declarative complementizer how in the long diachrony". In Current developments in English historical linguistics. Studies in honour of Rafał Molencki, ed. by Artur Kijak, Andrzej M. Łęcki & Jerzy Nykiel. Katowice; Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, pp. 109-128. [Second author, with María José López-Couso.]

(2017). "Co-occurrence and iteration of intensifiers in Early English." English Text Construction 10/2: 249-273; special issue on Grammar, usage and discourse: Functional studies offered to Kristin Davidse, ed. by Lieven Vandelanotte, Wout Van Praet & Lieselotte Brems.

(2017). "The Corpus of Historical English Law Reports 1535-1999 (CHELAR): A resource for analysing the development of English legal discourse." ICAME Journal 41: 53-82. [Fourth author, with Teresa Fanego, Paula Rodríguez-Puente, María José López-Couso, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, Cristina Blanco-García & Iván Tamaredo.]

(2016). "From clause to adverb: On the history of maybe". In Outside the clause, ed. by Gunther Kaltenböck, Evelien Keizer & Arne Lohmann. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 157-176. [Second author, with María José López-Couso.]

(2016). Review of Ayumi Miura, Middle English verbs of emotion and impersonal constructions: Verb meaning and syntax in diachrony (Oxford Studies in the History of English. Oxford: OUP, 2015). English Language and Linguistics 21(1): 155-161.

(2016). Rodríguez-Puente, Paula / Teresa Fanego / María José López-Couso / Belén Méndez-Naya / Paloma Núñez-Pertejo. Corpus of Historical English Law Reports 1535-1999 (CHELAR). University of Santiago de Compostela: Research Unit for Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalization, Department of English and German. ISBN: 978-84-608-8006-6.

(2016), ed. Corpus linguistics on the move: Exploring and understanding English through corpora (Language and Computers Series 79). Amsterdam: Brill/Rodopi. ISBN: 9789004308077. [Second editor, with María José López-Couso, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Ignacio Palacios-Martínez]. Volume honoured with the 2017 AESLA Book Award (‘XX Premio de Investigación AESLA para investigadores/as experimentados’), the 1st AELINCO Research Award 'Aquilino Sánchez' and the 2017 'Leocadio Martín Mingorace' Award on Theoretical and Applied English Linguistics (41st AEDEAN Conference).

(2016). "From the fringe to the mainstream: English corpus linguistics moving ahead". In Corpus linguistics on the move: Exploring and understanding English through corpora, ed. by María José López-Couso et al. Amsterdam: Brill/Rodopi, pp. 1-18. [Second author, with María José López-Couso, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Ignacio Palacios-Martínez.]

(2015). "Evidential/epistemic markers of the type verb + complementizer: Some parallels from English and Romance". In New Directions in Grammaticalization Research, ed. by Andrew D. M. Smith, Graeme Trousdale & Richard Waltereit. (Studies in Language Companion Series 166). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 93-120 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2015). "Secondary grammaticalization in clause combining: From adverbial subordination to complementation in English". Language Sciences 47: 188-198; special issue on What happens after grammaticalization? Secondary grammaticalization and other late stage processes, ed. by Tine Breban & Svenja Kranich [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2014). "Out of the spatial domain: 'Out'-intensifiers in the history of English". Folia Linguistica Historica 35: 241-274.

(2014). "Epistemic parentheticals with seem: Late Modern English in focus". In The syntax of Late Modern English, ed. by Marianne Hundt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 291-308 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2014). "From clause to pragmatic marker: A study of the development of like parentheticals in American English". Journal of Historical Pragmatics 15(1): 66-91 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2014). "On the origin of clausal parenthetical constructions: Evidential/epistemic parentheticals with seem and impersonal think". In Diachronic corpus pragmatics, ed. by Irma Taavitsainen, Andreas H. Jucker & Jukka Tuominen. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 243), Amsterdam & Philadelphia:  John Benjamins, pp.189-212 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2014). "The use of if as a declarative complementizer in English: Some theoretical and empirical considerations". In Diachrony and synchrony in English corpus linguistics, ed. by Alejandro Alcaraz-Sintes & Salvador Valera-Hernández (Linguistic Insights Series 181). Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 85-107 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2013). Review of Ruth Möhlig-Falke, The early English impersonal construction (Oxford: O.U.P. 2012). Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 114: 365-371.

(2013). "A tribute to Dieter Kastovsky (1940-2012)". Nexus AEDEAN 2013(1): 128-134 [first author, with María José López-Couso].

(2012). "A preliminary study of the history of the intensifier utterly". In  At a time of crisis: English and American studies in Spain. Works from the 35th AEDEAN Conference, ed. by Sara Martín Alegre, Melissa Moyer, Elisabet Pladevall & Susagna Tubau. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 368-375. ISBN-10: 84-695-4273-7.

(2012). "Compiling British English legal texts: A contribution to ARCHER”. In Creation and use of historical English corpora in Spain, ed. by Nila Vázquez. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 5-19 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2012). “On the origin and development of comparative complementizers in English: Evidence from historical corpora”. In Creation and use of historical English corpora in Spain, ed. by Nila Vázquez. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 311-333 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2012). “Late Modern English syntax”. In Historical Linguistics of English: An international handbook. Volume I, ed. by Alexander Bergs & Laurel J. Brinton. (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science [HSK] 34.1). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 869-887 [third author, with Bas Aarts & María José López-Couso].

(2012). "On the use of as if, as though and like in Present-Day English complementation structures". Journal of English Linguistics 40(2): 172-195 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2011). Review of Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Graeme Trousdale (eds.) Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2010). Folia Linguistica 45(1): 222-232.

(2011). Review of Jonathan Culpeper, Francis Katamba, Paul Kerswill, Ruth Wodak & Tony McEnery, eds. English language. Description, variation, context (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).  The European English Messenger 20(2): 84-86.

(2010). "Intensifiers in competition: The picture from early English medical writing". In Early Modern English medical texts: Corpus description and studies, ed. by Irma Taavitsainen & Päivi Pahta. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 193-215 [first author, with Päivi Pahta].

(2010). Review of Ursula Lenker & Anneli Meurman-Solin (eds.) Connectives in the history of English (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2007). Journal of Historical Pragmatics 11(1): 155-163.

(2010). "El proyecto 'Variación, cambio lingüístico y gramaticalización': objetivos y líneas metodológicas". In Actas del XXXIX Simposio Internacional de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística (SEL), 1-4 Febrero, 2010 , ed. by Pablo Cano López, Soraya Cortiñas Ansoar, Beatriz Dieste Quiroga, Isabel Fernández López & Luz Zas Varela. Santiago de Compostela: Servizo de Publicacións da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela [third author, with Teresa Fanego, María José López-Couso, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, Elena Seoane & Carlos Prado-Alonso].

(2008), ed. English intensifiers. Special issue, English Language and Linguistics 12(2): 213-394.

(2008). "Introduction". Special issue, English Language and Linguistics 12(2): 213-219.

(2008). “On the history of downright”. In Méndez-Naya, ed. English intensifiers. Special issue, English Language and Linguistics 12(2): 267-287.

(2008). "'The which is most and right harde to answere': Intensifying right and most in earlier English". In English Historical Linguistics 2006. Vol. II: Lexical and semantic change, ed. by Richard Dury, Maurizio Gotti & Marina Dossena. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins, pp. 31-51.

(2007). "He nas nat right fat: On the origin and development of the intensifier right". In Studies in Middle English forms and meanings, ed. by Gabriella Mazzon. (Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature 19). Frankfurt am Main, etc.: Peter Lang, pp. 191-207.

(2006).  "Adjunct, modifier, discourse marker: On the various functions of right in the history of English." Folia Linguistica Historica 27: 141-169.

(2006).  "Complement selection in Early English dependent desires". Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 14: 33-53 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(2004). "Los estudios de gramaticalización: pasado, presente y futuro" [Grammaticalization studies: past, present and future].In Proceedings of the 27th International AEDEAN Conference, ed. by Antonio R. Celada, Daniel Pastor García & Pedro Javier Pardo García. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca [with María José López-Couso, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Elena Seoane]. CD-ROM.

(2003). "On intensifiers and grammaticalization: The case of swithe". English Studies 84:372-391.

(2002), ed. Sounds, words, texts and change. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 224). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins [second editor, with Teresa Fanego & Elena Seoane]. Reviewed in English Language and Linguistics 8/2 (2004): 355-360; Language 80/1 (2004): 173-174; The Linguist List  January 27 2004 (Issue 15.300); The Year's Work in English Studies 83 (2002): 7ff.

(2001). "On the history of if- and though-links with declarative complement clauses". English Language and Linguistics 5: 93-107 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(1998). "On minor declarative complementisers in the history of English: The case of but". In Advances in English historical linguistics, ed. by Jacek Fisiak & Marcin Krygier. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 161-171 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(1997). "Subject clauses in Old English: Do they really exist?". Miscelánea. A Journal of English and American Studies 18: 213-230.

(1997). "Impersonal: Clarifying the terminological maze". In Studies in Middle English language and literature, ed. by José Luis Chamosa & Trinidad Guzmán. León: Universidad de León, pp. 145-152 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(1997). "What is really meant by impersonal? On impersonal and related terms". Atlantis. Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies 19: 185-192 [first author, with María José López-Couso].

(1996). "On the use of the subjunctive and modals in Old and Middle English dependent commands and requests. Evidence from the Helsinki Corpus". Neuphilologische Mitteilungen XCVII: 411-421 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(1996). Finite complementation in Old English. A corpus-based study. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. ISBN 8481212881.

(1996). "How to consider how: On how as a declarative complementiser in the history of English". In Proceedings of the 19th International AEDEAN Conference, Vigo, December 1995, ed. by Javier Pérez-Guerra. Vigo: Universidade de Vigo, pp. 347-352 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

(1996).  “Los estudios y la enseñanza de la historia de la lengua inglesa en España” ['The history of the English language in Spanish universities: Teaching and research']. In Proceedings of the 19th International AEDEAN Conference, Vigo, December 1995, ed. by Javier Pérez-Guerra. Vigo: Universidade de Vigo, pp. 635-637 [third author, with Luis Iglesias-Rábade, María José López-Couso & Elena Seoane].

(1995). "Cwethan, secgan and cythan: On mood selection in Old English dependent statements". Atlantis. Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies 17: 127-144.

(1995). "Hit and thaet anticipating subject clauses in OE: True syntactic equivalents?" Neuphilologische Mitteilungen XCVI: 23-37.

(1995). "Review of Bruce Mitchell 1995: An invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England". SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 5:142-146.

(1993). "The study of English subject clauses from a diachronic point of view: A preliminary  approach". In Papers from the 4th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (SELIM), Santiago, 24-27 September 1991, ed. by Teresa Fanego. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, pp. 193-201 [second author, with María José López-Couso].

Conference presentations:

See the entry Presentations on this website.

 
 

Department of English and German | Facultad de Filología | Universidad de Santiago de Compostela | 15782 Santiago de Compostela, SPAIN
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