Find Academic Supervisors

Mithun MarianneView profile

Professor

• Morphology
• Syntax
• Discourse
• +7 more

Mithun Marianne is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA, since 1986. Previously, she held roles including Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley (1982-1986) and Professor at SUNY Albany (1973-1985). She earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1974. Her research focuses on morphology, syntax, discourse, prosody, language contact/change, typology, and documentation of Indigenous and Austronesian languages. She has held visiting positions globally, including at the University of Nice, Stanford, and La Trobe University. She serves on editorial boards for journals like Amérindia and Journal of Linguistic Typology . Her honors include Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America (2008), the Medaille du Collège de France (2005), and Doctorates Honoris Causa from La Trobe University (2003) and the University of Oslo (2000). She was elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1998. Recent activities include leading international research initiatives on cross-linguistic clause combining (2010-2012) and serving on scientific committees for language documentation conferences. Her work bridges linguistic theory with empirical analysis, emphasizing fieldwork and endangered language preservation.

• Turkic Linguistics
• Historical Linguistics
• Etymology
• +4 more

Michał Németh is a Full Professor and Head of the Research Centre for Language Documentation at the Institute of Linguistics, Translation Studies, and Hungarian Philology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. His academic career includes roles as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (2015-2018) and positions at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He holds a habilitation (2020) and PhD (2011) in Linguistics. His research focuses on historical linguistics, specializing in Turkic languages (particularly Karaim), Hungarian etymology, and Slavic language influences. Key projects include the ERC-funded '(Re)constructing a Bible' initiative, which digitizes and analyzes Karaim Biblical manuscripts. He leads critical editions of Karaim texts and explores language contact phenomena in Eastern Europe. Notable achievements include ERC Starting Grant (2018), Humboldt Fellowships, and Rector Awards for scientific contributions. His work bridges philology, codicology, and digital humanities, creating semantic web platforms for linguistic data. He investigates Karaim dialect diversification, Slavic-Turkic loanword dynamics, and the sociohistorical context of minority languages. Research interests span Turkic historical phonology, etymology of Hungarian words, and documentation of endangered languages. He collaborates internationally on Karaim language preservation and has published extensively on linguistic methodology and manuscript analysis.

George WalkdenView profile

Professor

• Historical Linguistics
• Morphosyntax
• Germanic Languages
• +5 more

George Walkden is a Professor of English Linguistics and General Linguistics at the University of Konstanz. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Historical Syntax and leads the ERC-funded STARFISH project. Active since 2018, he holds a prominent role in the Department of Linguistics. His research focuses on historical linguistics, morphosyntax, and Germanic languages, with particular attention to language contact and syntactic change. Walkden has supervised numerous doctoral and master’s students, including prominent scholars like Frederik Hartmann (now at University of North Texas). He received a teaching nomination for Best Humanities Lecturer in 2013. Teaching spans Old English, syntax, and historical linguistics across institutions including Manchester and Cambridge. His work integrates computational methods, corpus linguistics, and phylogenetic analysis to explore syntactic evolution. Key research areas include Proto-Germanic syntax, V2 phenomena, and the impact of language contact on morphosyntactic structures. He has published extensively on topics ranging from Old English verb placement to computational models of language change. Walkden collaborates internationally, advising on projects like the Heliand Parsed Database and contributing to interdisciplinary studies in evolutionary linguistics.

Carmen WideraView profile

Lecturer

• Syntax
• Corpus Linguistics
• Empirical Research
• +4 more

Carmen Widera is a Research Assistant and Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Konstanz, Germany, affiliated with the Department of Linguistics. She holds a Master's equivalent (Staatsexamen) in French, Mathematics, and English from the University of Konstanz and is currently a PhD candidate in Linguistics, focusing on syntactic structures in French and Portuguese. Her research explores impersonal constructions, expletive pronouns, and language variation using empirical methods. Since 2015, she has been actively involved in academic organizing, co-organizing conferences such as the LIMES conference for young researchers in Romance Linguistics (2018) and the 38th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Linguistics (2016). She has also served as an elected representative for PhD students funded by the Cusanuswerk from 2016–2019. Her work has been presented at international conferences, including the AFLS in New Orleans (2024), the University of Sherbrooke (2024), and the Lusitanistentag in Leipzig (2021). Key topics include syntactic variation in French and Portuguese, empirical research methodologies, and the diachronic study of Portuguese. Widera has been a recipient of the Cusanuswerk scholarship (2018–2024), a German government award for academic excellence. She maintains proficiency in multiple Romance languages and utilizes tools like R, Perl, and LaTeX in her research.

Walter BisangView profile

Professor

• Linguistic Typology
• Language Contact/Areal Typology
• Grammaticalization
• +8 more

**Walter Bisang** is a Full Professor of General and Comparative Linguistics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz since 1992. He holds memberships in the Academia Europaea (since 2016) and the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz (since 2015). His research focuses on linguistic typology, grammaticalization, and cross-linguistic variation, with special attention to East Asian, Southeast Asian, and Caucasian languages. Bisang has directed major research initiatives, including the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 295) on 'Cultural and Linguistic Contacts' (1999–2008) and contributed to the PLATO project on language, cognition, and education. **Education**: PhD in General Linguistics, University of Zurich (1990); studies in Thai, Cambodian, and linguistics at SOAS, University of London (1986–1987). Earlier studies in linguistics, Chinese, and Georgian at the University of Zurich (1978–1986). **Research Interests**: Hidden complexity in grammar, grammaticalization processes, sociolinguistic factors in language change, and the interplay between language structure and cognitive processing. He has conducted fieldwork in Asia, Africa, and Europe, including visits at Zhejiang University, University of Hong Kong, and Chulalongkorn University. **Key Projects**: Editor-in-Chief of *Trends in Linguistics* (1996–2009), coordinator of the Research Center SOCUM (2009–2014), and advisor to over 30 PhD students annually through the Landesgraduiertenförderung (1996–2010). **Awards**: Recognized for contributions to linguistics through prestigious academic fellowships and editorial roles. His work bridges theoretical linguistics with interdisciplinary studies in education, neurolinguistics, and cognitive science.

Dan Xu SongView profile

Professor

• Language typology
• Excavated texts in Chinese
• Diachronic syntax in Chinese
• +2 more

Prof. Dr. Dan Xu Song is a Professor and Head of the ERC project at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany (since 2022). Previously, he held positions at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) in France, including Exceptional Category Professor (2013–present) and Full Professor (2003–2013). His research focuses on language typology, diachronic syntax in Chinese, language contacts, and interdisciplinary studies linking language to genetics. He leads the ERC-funded TRAM project (2021–2027), investigating language and population mixing in the Gansu-Qinghai area through linguistics, molecular anthropology, and archaeology. Awards: Member of Academia Europaea (2021), Senior Member of IUF (2009–2014). Grants: ERC-AdG TRAM (2021–2027), ANR-funded projects, and collaborations with Chinese and Hong Kong institutions. His research integrates linguistics with genetics and history, exploring how nomadic and agrarian populations influenced language evolution in China’s northwest. He founded the Neurolinguistics Lab, focusing on interdisciplinary studies of language structure and its societal impacts.

• Linguistics
• Sign Languages
• Construction Grammar
• +7 more

Ryan Lepic is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Gallaudet University, specializing in the structure of American Sign Language (ASL) and usage-based approaches to linguistic analysis. He holds a PhD from the University of California, San Diego (2015), and focuses on topics such as construction grammar, sign language typology, and the relationship between form and meaning in signed languages. His research emphasizes empirical descriptions of ASL, challenging outdated frameworks and advocating for cross-linguistically transparent terminology. Teaching includes courses like LIN-732 Cognitive Linguistics II, LIN-263 Introduction to ASL Structure, and PST-361 Introduction to ASL. His work frequently intersects with corpus linguistics and empirical data collection, as seen in projects analyzing initialized signs, compounds, and idioms in ASL. Collaborations include work with researchers like Corrine Occhino and Julie Hochgesang on topics ranging from corpus development to theoretical debates over 'lexicalization' in sign languages. Publications span cognitive linguistics, sign language syntax, and multimodal compositionality, with recent attention to idioms as affective constructions and the role of frequency in linguistic knowledge. His research often highlights ASL's unique status as a young language in contact with spoken languages, providing insights into language change and variation.

Merete Brendeford AnderssenView profile

Professor

• Multilingual Acquisition
• Syntactic Variation
• Language Attrition
• +3 more

Merete Brendeford Anderssen is a Professor of English Linguistics at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, serving as Academic Programme Director for English Language and Theoretical Linguistics and Deputy leader of the research group AcqVA-Nor. She leads the C-LaBL Learning Domain and oversees study programs in English linguistics (M-EAC) and theoretical linguistics (M-TLIN). Her research focuses on multilingual acquisition, syntactic variation, heritage languages, and cross-linguistic influence. She has contributed to projects like MultiGender (CAS), MiMS (RCN), INPUT (MSCA), and MuMiN (RCN), exploring language representation, attrition, and maintenance across diverse populations. Her work integrates experimental methods (ERP studies, response time analysis) with theoretical linguistics, examining how structural similarities between languages influence acquisition and attrition. Key themes include heritage language trajectories in Syrian Arabic-German bilinguals, L3 acquisition processes, and dialect levelling mechanisms in Norwegian dialects. She has published extensively on word order variation, possessive constructions, and cross-linguistic influence in multilingual contexts. Current research interests include studying heritage speakers across ages and examining the role of English-Norwegian similarities in multilingual minds. Anderssen collaborates internationally, leading teams that bridge psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Her grants include €1.5M from RCN for MuMiN (2021-2025) and MSCA funding for INPUT (2021-2023).

• First language acquisition
• Second/third language acquisition
• Bilingual and multilingualism
• +7 more

Marit Westergaard is a Professor of English Linguistics at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, affiliated with the Department of Language and Culture. She holds a dual role as Secretary General of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and leads research at the Center for Language, Brain & Learning (C-LaBL), a Trond Mohn Foundation-funded initiative focusing on multilingualism and language acquisition. Her work spans first, second/third, and bilingual language acquisition, with specializations in syntax, grammatical gender, and heritage languages. Research Interests include: syntax (word order, possessive constructions), language attrition, and diachronic change, particularly in Norwegian dialects. She explores multilingualism through projects like AcqVA (Acquisition, Variation & Attrition) and MiMS (Microvariation in Multilingual Acquisition & Attrition Situations). Her recent work emphasizes cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in L3 acquisition, using experimental methods (eye-tracking, behavioral studies). Key contributions include the 'Linguistic Proximity Model' and 'Micro-cue Model', explaining how multilingual grammars interact. Active in labs like PoLaR (Psycholinguistics of Language Representation) and AcqVA Aurora, she also runs public-facing initiatives like Flere språk til flere. Grant involvement includes the RCN-funded MuMiN (Multilingual Minds) and international collaborations (EEA Norway grants, MSCA projects). Her 2025 publications address CLI in artificial languages, gender loss in Oslo dialects, and trilingual processing in children. Ongoing projects investigate structural similarity effects and heritage language attrition.

Björn LundquistView profile

Associate Professor

• Linguistics
• Syntax
• Language Processing
• +6 more

Björn Lundquist is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Language and Culture at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His research focuses on syntactic variation, language processing, grammatical gender, dialect variation, and heritage languages. He collaborates with institutions like AcqVA-Aurora and CASTLFish, and leads projects funded by the Norwegian Research Council, including the Nordic Word Order Database. Education: PhD in Theoretical Linguistics (2008, University of Tromsø), Master's in Nordic Languages (2005, Lund University). He has supervised students such as Maud Westendorp and Eirik Tengesdal. Awards include grants from UiT and the NORMS program. Key research interests include experimental approaches to syntactic optionality, prosody-syntax interface, and language attrition in heritage speakers. His work spans peer-reviewed journals like Frontiers in Psychology , Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , and Glossa . He organizes workshops on topics like bidialectism and language variation. Lundquist is involved in projects like Multilectal Literacy in Education and Grammatical Gender in Norwegian Dialects . His lab work includes eye-tracking and ERP studies to explore language comprehension and production.

• English Philology
• Historical Linguistics
• Corpus Linguistics
• +4 more

Maria Jose Lopez Couso is a Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, affiliated with the Faculty of Philology and the Department of English and German Philology. Her academic work centers on English philology with a focus on syntactic structures and historical language development. Her research interests lie primarily in English Philology , Historical Linguistics , and Corpus Linguistics , with specific expertise in finite complementation, linguistic change, and grammaticalization processes. She is a member of the research group VLCG (Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalization), which investigates diachronic and structural shifts in language. She completed her doctorate at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1994 with a corpus-based study on finite complementation in the works of John Dryden, supervised by Dr. Teresa Fanego. No scientific awards were mentioned in the provided text. Maria Jose Lopez Couso has advised doctoral students, though specific names are not listed. There is no mention of grants or funded projects in the available information. She is part of the research group VLCG – Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalization , which conducts interdisciplinary research on language evolution and structural change.

• Historical Linguistics
• Syntax
• English Philology
• +5 more

MARIA BELEN MENDEZ NAYA is a Professor in the Department of English and German Philology at the Faculty of Philology, University of Santiago de Compostela. She is affiliated with the VLCG research group (Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalization), focusing on diachronic and syntactic aspects of the English language. Her research interests lie primarily in historical linguistics and syntactic theory, with a focus on the evolution of English syntax. Key areas include complementation structures in Old English, grammaticalization processes, and linguistic variation over time. Her work bridges philology and modern syntactic analysis. The VLCG research group explores patterns of language change, particularly in Germanic and Romance languages, with an emphasis on structural shifts and grammaticalization phenomena. This aligns closely with Professor Méndez Naya’s doctoral work and ongoing scholarly contributions. She earned her doctorate from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1995 with a thesis titled Syntactic aspects of complementation in Old English , supervised by Dr. Teresa Fanego. No recent publications, awards, or student advisement information is available in the provided text.

Hongming ZhangView profile

Professor

• Chinese Linguistics
• Syntax-Phonology Interface
• Prosodic Phonology
• +8 more

Hongming Zhang is a Professor of Chinese Linguistics and Head of the Chinese Language and Linguistics Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he has been a faculty member since 1994. He also directs the UW-Tianjin Summer Chinese Program and holds editorial leadership roles in major journals and book series in Chinese linguistics. Ph.D., University of California at San Diego, Linguistics (1992) M.A., University of California at San Diego, Linguistics (1990) M.A., Fudan University, Chinese Linguistics (1984) B.A., Fudan University, Chinese Language (1981) His research focuses on the syntax-phonology interface, prosodic phonology, poetic prosody, and the history of the Chinese language. He has made significant contributions to the understanding of tone sandhi, tonal representation in dialects, and the linguistic structure of classical Chinese poetry. His work bridges theoretical linguistics and literary analysis, particularly in the context of historical and dialectal variation. The most recent articles highlight a strong trend in prosodic studies across Chinese dialects, historical phonology, and the linguistic analysis of classical poetry. His publications consistently emphasize empirical data from understudied dialects and integrate formal linguistic theory with philological insights. Vilas Associate Award (UW-Madison, 2003–05) Chiang Ching Kuo Research Grants (1997–99, 2005–06) Chern Shiing-shen Chair Professor (Nankai University, 2006) Chang Jiang Scholar Chair Professor (China MOE, 2009) Teacher of the Year 2015 (Wisconsin Association of Chinese Language Teachers) Distinguished Guest Professor (multiple Chinese universities) Professor Zhang has advised numerous students and led curriculum development in Chinese language and linguistics. He has secured research grants from prestigious foundations and has held leadership roles in international scholarly organizations. He is currently executive editor of the International Journal of Chinese Linguistics and series editor for Routledge Studies in Chinese Linguistics . He leads a research group focused on prosodic theory and Chinese linguistic analysis, contributing to interdisciplinary projects connecting linguistics, literature, and language education.

• Phonotactics
• Loanword Adaptation
• Comparative Linguistics
• +5 more

Krzysztof Jaskuła is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English-Polish Comparative Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. His work focuses on phonotactics, loanword adaptation, and historical phonology with specialization in Celtic and Polish languages. Academic Affiliation: Department of English-Polish Comparative Linguistics, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin ORCID: 0000-0002-5292-4163 Research Interests include: Phonotactic constraints in Polish and Celtic languages Historical development of consonant systems Government Phonology applications Toponymic phonology Comparative Celtic and Slavic linguistic analysis Recent Publications demonstrate expertise in: Polish place name consonant sequences (2025) Loanword adaptation in Irish (2023) Phonological complexity scales (2023) Diachronic rhotic sound analysis (2018) Editorial Contributions : Editor-in-chief of "Phonological and Phonetic Explorations" (2020) Co-editor of "All around the Word" Festschrift (2019) Editor-in-chief of "Levels of interpretation in sound systems" (2014) Conference Activity : Presented at 1st Lublin Celtic Colloquium Organized international phonology/phonetics conferences Reviewed for journals like Lege Artis and Bulletin of the Polish Linguistic Society

• Historical Morpho-Syntax
• Dialectal Variation
• Language Contact
• +4 more

Dr. Marina Gomila Albal is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), holding a PhD in Philology and Philosophy (2022). She was a Juan de la Cierva Fellow at the CSIC in 2024. Her research focuses on historical morpho-syntax and dialectal variation in Spanish, particularly medieval pronoun systems and language contact phenomena. Specializes in diachronic and dialectal changes in Iberian Romance languages Member of the HIPERTEXT research group at UIB Current work includes the Historical Atlas of Spanish maps Her scholarly work combines corpus-based analysis of pre-1800 Spanish documents with comparative studies of Catalan, Galician, and Portuguese traditions. Publications span prestigious venues like Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie and Bulletin of Hispanic Studies . She has presented at major conferences including the Societas Linguistica Europaea (Athens 2023) and German Association of Hispanists (Graz 2023). Teaching areas include: Syntax (I and II) Phonetics and Phonology Spanish Language History (I and II) Textual Linguistics Social and Geographical Variation Technical Writing Scientific achievements: Juan de la Cierva Fellowship (CSIC, 2024) Plenary speaker at 37th AJIHLE Congress (Madrid 2023) Invited speaker at URPP Language and Space Colloquium (Zurich 2023)