Past PhD students

Read examples of research subjects undertaken by graduates in Linguistics and English Language.

  • Eman Alkroud - 'Renarrating the Berbers in Three Tamazight Translations of the Holy Quran: Paratextual and Framing Strategies'.
  • Heidi Reid - 'Tense, Aspect, & Modality in Bastimentos Creole English (BCE)'.
  • Roisin Cosnahan (2022) - 'A Comparative Investigation of the Diachronic Pragmatics of Negation in the Romance Languages' (supervised by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Delia Bentley).
  • Stephen Nichols (2022) - 'The Phonology and Typology of Height Harmony in the Bantu Languages' (supervised by Wendell Kimper and Yuni Kim).
  • Kaiyue Xing (2022) - 'The Sociophonetics and Phonology of Mandarin Rhoticity' (supervised by Maciej Baranowski and Patrycja Strycharczuk).
  • Anh Khoi Nguyen (2022) - 'Heritage Language Maintenance in an 'Integrated' Minority' (supervised by Yaron Matras).
  • Colin Rutland (2022) - 'Vagueness in Nouns and Adjectives: Towards a Unifying Theory' (supervised by Andrew Koontz-Garboden and Martina Faller).
  • Juliette Angot (2022) - 'A Cross-Cultural Study of French and Korean Epistemic Markers' (supervised by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Martina Faller).
  • Aseel Almuhaimeed (2022) - 'Phonological Processes in the Najdi Arabic Dialect: An Optimality Theory Approach' (supervised by Wendell Kimper and Yuni Kim).
  • Massimiliano Canzi (2021) - 'Lexical Knowledge and its Influence on Speech Perception' (supervised by Wendell Kimper and Patrycja Strycharczuk).
  • Lorenzo Moretti (2021) - 'Do Between Modal Auxiliaries in Early Modern English: A Usage-Based Study' (supervised by Tine Breban and Kersti Börjars).
  • Leonie Gaiser (2021) - 'Arabic in a Global Diaspora - Maintenance of and Provisions for Arabic in Manchester, UK' (supervised by Yaron Matras and Rebecca Tipton).
  • Lisa Donlan (2021) - 'You Either Die a Cinnamon Roll or Live Long Enough to Become a Problematic Fave: The Carnivalesque Discursive Practices of Fandom Blogs on Tumblr' (supervised by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Andrea Nini).
  • Donald Morrison (2020) - 'The Phonology of Scottish Gaelic' (supervised by Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, Claire Nance and Wendell Kimper).
  • Stefano Coretta (2020) - 'Vowel Duration and Consonant Voicing: An Articulatory Study' (supervised by Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero and Patrycja Strycharczuk).
  • Heidi Reid (2020) - 'The TMA System of Bastimentos Creole English' (supervised by Eva Schultze-Berndt and Delia Bentley)
  • Pablo Fuentes Opazo (2019) - 'The Semantics of Modality and Tense in Predictive Illocutions: A Cross-Linguistic Study in English and Mapudungun' (supervised by Martina Faller and Graham Stevens).
  • Simone De Cia (2019) - 'At the Edge of Ladin, Venetan and Friulian: A Morpho-Syntactic Study of Two Dialect Areas in the South-Eastern Part of the Province of Belluno (Sovramontino and Lamonat) and in North-Western Part of the Province of Udine (Fornese di Sopra)' (supervised by Delia Bentley and Julio Villa-Garcia). 
  • Haifa Alroqi (2019) - 'A Case-Control Study of Media Viewing and Language Delay in Saudi Young Children' (supervised by Thea Cameron-Faulkner, Ludovica Serratrice and Eman Abdoh (King Abdulaziz University)).
  • Victoria Thomas (2019) - 'Auxiliary Ellipsis in Early Modern German: Synchrony and Diachrony' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and George Walkden).
  • Deepthi Gopal (2019) - 'The Morphology-Phonology Interaction in Kazakh and Kyrgyz Reduplication Processes' (supervised by Yuni Kim and Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero).
  • George Bailey (2019) - 'Dialect Levelling in Northern Greater Manchester: Working with Forced Alignment Software' (supervised by Maciej Baranowski and Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero).
  • Mary Begley (2019) - 'The lexical field of INSANITY in Middle English: semantic change and conceptual metaphor' (supervised by David Denison and David Matthews).
  • Hannah Booth (2018) - 'Expletive Subjects in Icelandic: A Diachronic Study' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and Tine Breban).
  • Kathleen Easlick (2018) - 'Language Policies in a Changing Europe: Regional and Immigrant Languages in Multi-Sited Comparisons' (supervised by Yaron Matras and Yuni Kim).
  • Khawla Ghadgoud (2018) - 'Negation Patterns in Libyan Arabic and Modern Arabic Varieties' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and John Payne).
  • Henri  Kauhanen (2018) - 'Neutrality, Biases and Social Network Effects in Language Change' (supervised by Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, Tobias Galla and George Walkden).
  • Fernanda Barrientos (2017) - (supervised by Yuni Kim and Wendell Kimper).
  • Victoria Chapman (2017) - 'Passives and Impersonals on Evidence from Romance Dialects of Italy' (Delia Bentley and John Payne).
  • Danielle Turton (2017) - 'Variation in Mancunian English: Synchronic reflections of the life cycle of phonological processes' (supervised by Maciej Baranowski, Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero and Yuni Kim).
  • Mohammed Jasim (2017) - 'Refusals of Requests and Offers in Iraqi Arabic and British English' (supervised by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Yaron Matras).
  • Safiah Madkhali (2017) - 'Cognate Object Constructions in MSA' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and John Payne).
  • Laura Arman (2016) - 'The Welsh Impersonal and Passive Constructions' (supervised by Andrew Koontz-Garboden, John Payne and George Walkden).
  • Cheryl Holden (2016) - 'The Discourse of Persuasion in British Workplaces' (supervised by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Iris Bachmann).
  • Julia Kolkmann (2016) - 'Inferential Mechanisms in the Interpretation of the S-Genitive in English' (supervised by John Payne and Martina Faller).
  • Ying Fan (2016) - 'Complex Predicates in Mandarin and Southern Min' (supervised by John Payne and Eva Schultze-Berndt).
  • Ayumi Shimoyoshi (visiting PhD student) - 'Psych Predicates in Spanish and Japanese' (supervised by Andrew Koontz-Garboden).
  • Piia Taremaa (visiting PhD student) - 'Motion Verbs and Constructions in Estonian' (supervised by Eva Schultze-Berndt).
  • Michaela Hejná (2015) - 'Pre-aspiration in Welsh English and its Implications for Approaches to Variation' (supervised by Yuni Kim, Maciej Baranowski and Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero).
  • Pauline Harries (2015) - 'The History and Current Distribution of the Genitive in Insular Scandinavian' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and David Denison).
  • Fatemah Mahsain (2015) - 'The Status of Single Foreign Origin Words in Kuwaiti Arabic' (supervised by Yaron Matras and Maciej Baranowski).
  • Essa Salem (2015) - 'Lexical Borrowing from English into Arabic in the Age of Globalisation' (supervised by Yaron Matras and Eva Schultze-Berndt).
  • Aurélie Cauchard (2015) - 'Spatial Expression in Grammar and Discourse in Caac, an Endangered Language of New Caledonia' (supervised by Eva Schultze-Berndt and Isabelle Bril (CNRS, Paris, France)).
  • Farah Nazir (2015) - 'Syntactic and Semantic Properties of Light Verb Constructions in Potwari' (Mirpuri) (supervised by John Payne and Andrew Koontz-Garboden).
  • Nadiia Denhovska (2014) - 'The Role of Frequency in Implicit Learning of a Second Language' (supervised by John Payne and Ludovica Serratrice).
  • James Brookes (2014) - 'The Probabilistic and Multivariate Nature of Latin Grammatical Variation: The Choice Between factus est and est factus' (supervised by John Payne and David Langslow).
  • James Murphy (2014) - 'Exploring the Pragmatics of Apologies in Political Discourse' (supervised by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Erik Schleef).
  • Danielle Turton (2014) - 'Variation in English /l/: Synchronic Reflections of the Life Cycle of Phonological Processes' (supervised by Maciej Baranowski, Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero and Yuni Kim). 
  • D. Viktor Leggio (2013) - 'Language and Identity of a Diasporic Romani Community on the Internet' (supervised by Yaron Matras and Adi Kuntsman in Social Sciences). 
  • Jonathan Morris (2013) - 'Phonetic Variation in the Repertoire of Welsh-English Bilinguals' (supervised by Maciej Baranowski, Yuni Kim and Yaron Matras). 
  • Latifa Shamsan (2012) - 'A Cross-Cultural Study of Bahraini Idioms Comprehension' (supervised by Dr Paul Bennett and Dr Martina Faller).
  • Michael Ramsammy (2012) - 'The Realisation of Coda Nasals in Spanish' (supervised by Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero and Yuni Kim). 
  • Marije van Hattum (2012) - 'Irish English Modal Verbs from the 14th to the 20th Centuries' (supervised by David Denison and Nuria Yañez-Bouza). 
  • Francesco Casti (2012) - 'Testing the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy: Aspectual and Modal Periphrases in Modern Sardinian' (supervised by Delia Bentley and Martina Faller).
  • Patrycja Strycharczuk (2012) - 'Phonetics-Phonology Interactions in Pre-Sonorant Voicing' (supervised by Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero and Yuni Kim). 
  • Mohamed Fatih Othman (2012) - 'Arabic diglossia in a migrant community' (supervised by Yaron Matras and Erik Schleef).
  • Siavash Rafiee Rad (2012) - 'The semantics and syntax of verbal anaphora in Persian' (supervised by John Payne and Martina Faller). 
  • Dorothea Hoffmann (2012) - 'Descriptions of motion and travel in Jaminjung and Kriol' (supervised by Eva Schultze-Berndt and Andrew Koontz-Garboden). 
  • Samuel Atintono (2012) - 'A Typological Study of Postural Semantics in Gurene' (supervised by Martina Faller and Andrew Koontz-Garboden).
  • Ebtesam Alothman (2012) - 'An Investigation of Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication Among Arab Users of Internet' (supervised by Yaron Matras and Erik Schleef).
  • Timothy Feist (2011) - 'A Grammar of Skolt Saami' (supervised by John Payne). 
  • Ayumi Miura (2011) - 'The Lexical Semantics of Middle English Impersonal Constructions, with Special Reference to Verbs of Emotion' (supervised by David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza). 
  • Daniel Paul (2011) - 'A Comparative Dialectal Description of Iranian Taleshi' (supervised by John Payne).
  • Francesco Ciconte (2010) - 'Existential Constructions in the Early Italo-Romance Vernaculars' (supervised by Delia Bentley and Nigel Vincent). 
  • Candide Simard (2010) - 'The Intonation Contours of Jaminjung, an Australian Language' (supervised by Eva Schultze-Berndt and Yi Xu at University College London). 
  • Aurélie Joubert (2010) - 'A Comparative Study of Evolution of Prestige Formation and of Speakers' Attitudes in Occitan and Catalan' (supervised by Iris Bachmann and Nigel Vincent). 
  • Rob Drummond (2010) - 'Sociolinguistic Variation in a Second Language: The Influence of Local Accent on the Pronunciation of Non-Native English Speakers Living in Manchester' (supervised by Thea Cameron-Faulkner, Martin Barry and Maciej Baranowski). 
  • Mercy Akrofi Ansah (2009) - 'Aspects of Lete Grammar' (supervised by Kristine Hildebrandt, Martin Barry, Eva Schultze-Berndt and John Payne). 
  • Agnese Foresti Hai (2009) - 'Documentation of the Endangered Language Suyá' (supervised by Nigel Vincent and John Payne).
  • Christiana Themistocleous (2009) - 'Cypriot Greek in Computer-Mediated Communication' (supervised by Nigel Vincent). 
  • Elke Philburn (2009) - 'A Laryngographic Study of German Stop Glottalisation' (supervised by Martin Barry). 
  • Ashraf Abdou (2009) - 'Arabic Idioms: A Corpus-Based Study' (supervised by Paul Bennett). 
  • Susana Afonso (2008) - 'The Family of Impersonal Constructions in European Portuguese: An Onomasiological Constructional Approach' (supervised by Nigel Vincent). 
  • Heveen Ali Kurdi (2008) - 'Use of Discourse Markers by Syrian Arabic Learners of English' (supervised by Yaron Matras).
  • Barbara Schrammel (2008) - 'Verb Derivational Morphology and Event Structure in Romani' (supervised by Yaron Matras). 
  • Anton Tenser (2008) - 'The Northeastern Group of Romani Dialects' (supervised by Yaron Matras). 
  • Yuen (Sandy) Lo (2008) - 'Cantonese-English Code-Switching in the Manchester Chinese Immigrant Community' (supervised by Yaron Matras).
  • Sirin Tufan (2008) - 'Language Convergence in Gostivar Turkish (Macedonia)' (supervised by Yaron Matras). 
  • Veronica Schulman (2008) - 'A Descriptive Grammar of a Romani Dialect in Karditsa, Greece' (supervised by Yaron Matras).
  • Nuria Yáñez-Bouza (2007) - 'Preposition Stranding and Prescriptivism in English from 1500 to 1900: A Corpus-Based Approach' (supervised by David Denison). 
  • Louise Mycock (2007) - 'The Typology of Constituent Questions: a Lexical-Functional Grammar Analysis of 'wh'-questions' (supervised by Nigel Vincent and Kersti Börjars). 
  • Oliver Bond (2006) - 'Aspects of Eleme Verbal Morpho-Syntax' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and Dan Everett). 
  • Rob O'Connor (2006) - '
Information Structure in Lexical-Functional Grammar: The Discourse-Prosody Correspondence' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and Dan Everett).
  • Maryam Shabibi (2006) - 'Contact-Induced Grammatical Changes in Khuzistani Arabic' (supervised by Yaron Matras).
  • Anita Auer (2005) - 'Language Standardisation and Prescription in the Eighteenth Century: The Subjunctive in English and (Austrian) German' (supervised by Sylvia Adamson and Martin Durrell). 
  • Francesco Goglia (2005) - 'Communicative Strategies in the Italian of Igbo-Nigerian Immigrants in Padova (Italy): A Contact Linguistic Approach' (supervised by Yaron Matras). 
  • Victorina González-Díaz (2004) - 'The Evolution of the Comparative Degree in English: A Corpus-Based Study' (supervised by Sylvia Adamson and David Denison). 
  • Junichi Toyota (2004) - 'Diachronic Change in the Passive: Conceptual Development and Gradience' (supervised by David Denison). 
  • Katrin Hiietam (2003) - 'Definiteness and Grammatical Relations in Estonian' (supervised by Kersti Börjars). 
  • Emma Moore (2003) - 'Learning Style and Identity: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of a Bolton High School' (supervised by David Denison and Richard Hogg).
  • Willem Hollmann (2003) - 'Synchrony and Diachrony of English Periphrastic Causatives: A Cognitive Perspective' (supervised by David Denison and William Croft). 
  • Stefania Tufi (2003) - 'Auxiliary Alternation in the Dialects of Castelli Romani' (supervised by Delia Bentley and Nigel Vincent). 
  • Sandra Paoli (2003) - 'COMP and the Left-Periphery: Comparative Evidence from Romance' (supervised by Nigel Vincent). 
  • Ioanna Sitaridou (2002) - 'The Synchrony and Diachrony of Romance Infinitives with Nominative Subjects' (supervised by Nigel Vincent). 
  • Philippa Cook (2001) - 'Coherence in German: An Information-Structural Account' (supervised by Martin Durrell). 
  • Petra Storjohann (2001) - 'Diachronic Comparative Lexical Field Analysis of Verbs of Locomotion from Old High German and Old English to the Present: A Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Approach' (supervised by David Denison and Martin Durrell). 
  • Ephraim Aveah Nsoh (2001) - 'Lexical-Functional Syntax of the Adjective: A Morpho-Syntactic Study of the Farefare Language (Northern Ghana)' (supervised by Kersti Börjars and the University of Ghana Legon). 
  • Linda van Bergen (2000) - 'Pronouns and Word Order in Old English, with Particular Reference to the Indefinite Pronoun 'man'' (supervised by David Denison). 
  • Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero (1999) - 'Constraint Interaction in Language Change: Quantity in English and Germanic'.  
  • Delia Bentley (1997) - 'The Expression of Conditionality and Futurity: Variation and Change in the Province of Palermo.' 
  • Adam Ledgeway (1996)