LÓPEZ-COUSO, MARÍA JOSÉ

María José López-Couso obtained an MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1986 and a PhD in English Linguistics in 1994, with a dissertation, supervised by Teresa Fanego, on aspects of the syntax of John Dryden. From October 1988 to October 1997 she worked as a researcher and lecturer in the English Department of Santiago de Compostela, and in November 1997 she obtained a position as tenured Senior Lecturer. She has also carried out research and/or taught at the Universities of Edinburgh, Freiburg, Glasgow, Helsinki, Manchester, Munich, Murcia and Vigo.

María José supervised the PhD dissertations of Nila Vázquez (2006) and Pilar Castillo-González (2007), and is currently supervising the PhDs of Zeltia Blanco-Suárez, Milagros Chao, Beatriz Macía, Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras, Paula Rodríguez-Puente, and (jointly with Teresa Fanego) Vera Vázquez-López. She was actively involved in the organization of the 26th International Conference of the Spanish Association for English and American Studies (December 2002) and in July 2005 she co-chaired with Elena Seoane the group running the Third International Conference New Reflections on Grammaticalization (NRG3). At the Fifteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (15ICEHL; University of Munich, 24-30 August 2008) she and Anneli Meurman-Solin (Helsinki) convened a workshop on "Information structure and syntactic change".

María José is the Vicedean for Students and International Relations and serves on the Editorial Boards of Folia Linguistica and ATLANTIS, the official journals of, respectively, the Societas Linguistica Europaea and the Spanish Association for English and American Studies. Recently she was elected to the Executive Board of ICAME, the international organization of linguists and information scientists working with English machine-readable texts.

María José teaches English Historical Syntax (undergraduate, 4th year) and a postgraduate course on Principles and Mechanisms of Linguistic Change. Her main research interests are grammaticalization processes in the history of English, clausal complementation in Old, Middle and Early Modern English, English existential constructions, and negative cliticization.

Contact information:

Department of English and German
Facultad de Filología
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, SPAIN
E-mail: mjlopez.couso@usc.es
Phone: +34 981563100 ext. 11891
Office: 413, fourth floor

Publications:

(Submitted). "On the use of as if, as though and like in Present-Day English complementation structures" [joint paper with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(Forthcoming), ed. Information structure and syntactic change [co-edited with Bettelou Los & Anneli Meurman-Solin].

(Forthcoming). "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 [joint chapter with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(Forthcoming). “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 [joint chapter with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(Forthcoming). "El proyecto 'Variación, cambio lingüístico y gramaticalización': objetivos y líneas metodológicas". In Actas del XXXIX Simposio Internacional de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística, ed. by Milagros Fernández Pérez. Santiago de Compostela: Servizo de Publicacións da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela [joint paper with Teresa Fanego, Belén Méndez-Naya, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, Elena Seoane & Carlos Prado-Alonso].

(2011). “Late Modern English syntax”. In Historical Linguistics of English: An international handbook, ed. by Alexander Bergs & Laurel J. Brinton. (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science [HSK]). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter [joint chapter with Bas Aarts & Belén Méndez-Naya].

(2010). “Subjectification and intersubjectification”. In Historical pragmatics, ed. by Andreas H. Jucker & Irma Taavitsainen. (Handbooks of Pragmatics, Vol. 8). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 127-163.

(2009). Review of Regine Eckardt's Meaning change in grammaticalization: An enquiry into semantic reanalysis (OUP 2006). Journal of Historical Pragmatics 10/1: 159-165.

(2008), ed. Rethinking grammaticalization: New perspectives. (Typological Studies in Language 76). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins [co-edited with Elena Seoane]. Reviewed in the Linguist List, issue 20.2282 (2009); Studies in Language 34.1 (2010): 195-204.

(2008), ed. Theoretical and empirical issues in grammaticalization. (Typological Studies in Language 77). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins [co-edited with Elena Seoane]. Reviewed in the Linguist List, issue 20.2282 (2009).

(2008). "Introduction: New perspectives on grammaticalization." In María José López-Couso & Elena Seoane, eds. Rethinking grammaticalization: New perspectives. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 1-13 [joint chapter with Elena Seoane].

(2008). "Introduction: Further reflections on grammaticalization." In Elena Seoane & María José López-Couso, eds. Theoretical and empirical issues in grammaticalization. (Typological Studies in Language). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 1-14 [joint chapter with Elena Seoane].

(2007). “Adverbial connectives within and beyond adverbial subordination: The history of lest”. In Connectives in the history of English, ed. by Ursula Lenker & Anneli Meurman-Solin. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 283). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 11-29.

(2007). "Frequency effects: Middle English nis as a case in point". 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. 165-178.

(2007). “Auxiliary and negative cliticisation in Late Modern English”. In 'Of varying language and opposing creed': New insights into Late Modern English, ed. by Javier Pérez-Guerra et al. (Linguistic Insights 28). Bern, etc.: Peter Lang, pp. 301-323.

(2006).  "Complement selection in Early English dependent desires". Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 14: 33-53 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(2006). “On negative existentials in Early English”. In: 'These things write I vnto thee': Essays in honour of Bjorg Baekken, ed. by Leiv Egil Breivik, Sandra Halverson & Kari Haugland. Oslo: Novus Press, pp. 175-187.

(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 Belén Méndez-Naya, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Elena Seoane]. [CD-Rom]

(2003), ed. Fifty years of English studies in Spain (1952-2002). A commemorative volume.  Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela [co-edited with Ignacio Palacios, Patricia Fra & Elena Seoane].

(2003). "Foreword". In Fifty years of English studies in Spain (1952-2002). A commemorative volume.  Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, pp. 15-19 [with Ignacio Palacios, Patricia Fra & Elena Seoane].

(2003). Review of David Crystal’s Language death. Anglia – Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 121/3: 451-455.

(2002), ed. English historical syntax and morphology. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 223). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins [co-edited with Teresa Fanego & Javier Pérez-Guerra]. Reviewed in English Language and Linguistics 8/2 (2004): 355-360; Language 80/1 (2004): 172-173; Studies in Language 29/1 (2005): 207-220; The Linguist List February 6 2003 (Issue 14.380); 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 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(1998). “On minor declarative complementizers 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 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(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 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(1997). “The history of English: Of what avail is it in the acquisition of English as a second language?” In Actas del I Congreso Internacional Adquisición y Aprendizaje de Lenguas Segundas y sus Literaturas, ed. by José Manuel Oro Cabanas & Jesús Varela Zapata. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, pp. 125-128 [with Karen Joan Duncan Barlow].

(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 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(1996). “A look at that / zero variation in Restoration English”. In English Historical Linguistics 1994, ed by  Derek Britton. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 271-286.

(1996). “On the history of methinks: From impersonal construction to fossilised expression”. Folia Linguistica Historica XVII: 153-169.

(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 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(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 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

(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 [with Luis Iglesias-Rábade, Belén Méndez-Naya & Elena Seoane].

(1995). Finite complementation in the works of John Dryden: A corpus-based study. Santiago de Compostela: Servicio de Publicacións e Intercambio Científico. ISBN 8481212083.

(1994). “Extraposition vs. intraposition: The whys and the wherefores.” In Actas del XVI Congreso Internacional AEDEAN, Valladolid, 14-16 de diciembre de 1992, ed. by José M. Ruiz, Pilar Abad & José M. Barrio. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, pp. 227-233.

(1994). “Some editions of The Bruce. A comparative account”. SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 4: 48-58 [with Isabel Moskowich-Spiegel Fandiño].

(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 [with Belén Méndez-Naya].

conference presentations:

See the entry Presentations on this website.