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. She is a Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics and coordinates the VLCG Research Unit.
María José has supervised the PhD dissertations of Nila Vázquez (2006), Pilar Castillo-González (2007), Paula Rodríguez-Puente (2013), Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras (2015), Zeltia Blanco-Suárez (2017), Daniela Pettersson-Traba (2021), Alba Pérez-González (2021), Cristina Blanco-García (2023), and (jointly with Teresa Fanego) Vera Vázquez-López (2013) and Beatriz Mato-Míguez (2016). Currently she is supervising the PhDs of Idoya Cancelas-León ( (jointly with Belén Méndez-Naya), and Jorge Fernández-Avilés (jointly with Teresa Fanego)..
María José has organized a number of international research meetings, including the Third International Conference New Reflections on Grammaticalization (NRG3) (July 2005), which she co-chaired with Elena Seoane, and the 34th International Conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME 34) (May 2013). She also has considerable experience in journal editing (jointly with Javier Pérez-Guerra, she co-edited Research in Corpus Linguistics, the official journal of the Spanish Association for Corpus Linguistics) and in university management (she was Dean of the Faculty of Philology from March 2012 to March 2020, Vice-Chancellor for Academic Degrees and International Recruitment from March 2020 to March 2022 and is currently Vice-Chancellor for Academic Degrees and Internationalization). Following the elections held online on 26th July 2021, María José has been appointed Vice-President for Research of ISLE, the International Society for the Linguistics of English.
Between 2012 and 2014 María José was Principal Investigator of the project “Constructionalization and grammaticalization in English”, carried out by the VLCG team under funding from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant FFI2011-26693-C02-01; €108.900 + 1 four-year research position). Jointly with Belén Méndez-Naya, she is the PI of two other projects on constructionalization carried out by the team and funded by 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).
María José has carried out research and/or taught at the Universities of Edinburgh, Freiburg, Glasgow, Helsinki, Manchester, Munich, Murcia, Vigo, University College London (Survey of English Usage) and Oslo. She has given invited talks and plenary lectures in A Coruña, Freiburg, Helsinki, Jaén, Málaga, Manchester, Vigo, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Edinburgh (NRG5), Murcia (ICOME8), Leuven (ICEHL 18), Cantabria (IV Congreso Internacional de Lingüística y Literatura), Valladolid (SELIM 31) and Oslo (Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages).
María José serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of English Linguistics, Babel-AFIAL and Atlantis, the official journal of the Spanish Association for English and American Studies (AEDEAN). Her numerous research interests include grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification processes in the history of English, clausal complementation in Old, Middle and Modern English, English existential constructions, and the development and constructionalization of parentheticals.
Contact information:
Vicerreitoría de Titulacións e Internacionalización
Colegio de San Xerome
Praza do Obradoiro, s/n
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, SPAIN
E-mail: mjlopez.couso@usc.es
Phone: +881 811 004
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 Gruyter, pp.109-134. [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya.] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753059-005
(2023). "Promoting and inhibiting forces at work: A corpus-based analysis of negative contraction in the recent history of English". In Context, intent and variation in grammaticalization, ed. by Hendrik De Smet, Peter Petré & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, pp. 189-214. [First author, with Javier Pérez- Guerra.] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753059-008
(2021). "From complementizing to modifying status: On the grammaticalization of the complement-taking-predicate-clauses chances are and odds are". Language Sciences 88: 101422. Special issue Complement and parenthetical constructions: Theory and description, edited by An Van linden, Lieselotte Brems & Lieven Vandelanotte. [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya.] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2021.101422
(2020), ed. Investigating stance in English: Synchrony and diachrony. Language Sciences 82 (Special issue). [Second editor, with Gunther Kaltenböck and Belén Méndez-Naya.]
(2020). "The dynamics of stance constructions". In Investigating stance in English: Synchrony and diachrony. Language Sciences 82:1-12 (Special issue). [Second author, with Gunther Kaltenböck and Belén Méndez-Naya.] DOI: 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. [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya.]
(2020). "Chances are: Enlarging the catalogue of epistemic expressions in English". 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. [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya.]
(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. [Second editor, with Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, Belén Méndez-Naya & 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. [Second
author, with Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, Belén Méndez-Naya & Javier Pérez-Guerra.]
(2019). "Grammar in context: On the role of hypercharacterization in language variation and change". In Grammar – Discourse – Context: Grammar and Usage in Language Variation and Change. (Discourse Patterns), ed. by Kristin Bech & Ruth Moehlig-Falke. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 335-366. ISBN: 9788322633113.
(2019). As variedades intranacionais e internacionais do inglés. (Colección Unidades Didácticas; Servizo de Normalización Lingüística). Santiago de Compostela: Servizo de Publicacións e Intercambio Científico. ISBN: 978-84-17595-60-9. [Second author, with Daniela Pettersson-Traba.]
(2018). "Matti Rissanen, the linguist, the friend. In Memoriam". Nexus AEDEAN 2018.2: 32-37 [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya.]
(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. [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya.]
(2017). "Transferring insights from child language acquisition to diachronic change (and vice versa)". In The changing English language: Psycholinguistic perspectives, ed. by Marianne Hundt, Simone Pfenninger & Sandra Mollin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 332-347. ISBN: 9781316091746.
(2017). "Grammaticalization”. In The Routledge handbook of pragmatics, ed. by Anne Barron, Yueguo Gu & Gerard Steen. Routledge: Oxford, pp. 277-292. ISBN: 9780415531412. [First author, with Elena Seoane.]
(2017). "Inferential-based approaches". In English historical linguistics: Approaches and perspectives, ed. by Laurel J. Brinton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 158-184. ISBN: 9781316286562.
(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. [Third author, with Teresa Fanego, Paula Rodríguez-Puente, Belén Méndez-Naya, 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. [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(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). Santiago de Compostela: Research Unit for Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalization, University of Santiago de Compostela. ISBN: 978-84-608-8006-6.
(2016). "Corpora and online resources in English historical linguistics". In The Cambridge handbook of English historical linguistics, ed. by Merja Kytö & Päivi Pahta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 127-145.
(2016), ed. Corpus linguistics on the move: Exploring and understanding English through corpora (Language and Computers Series 79). Amsterdam: Brill/Rodopi. ISBN: 9789004308077. [First editor, with Belén Méndez-Naya, 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. [First author, with Belén Méndez-Naya, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Ignacio Palacios-Martínez].
(2016). "Continuing the dialogue between corpus linguistics and grammaticalization theory: Three case studies". Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 12 [special issue guest-edited by Martin Hilpert & Hubert Cuyckens, How do corpus-based techniques advance description and theory in English
historical linguistics?]: 7-29.
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(2014). "There follows + that-clause: A case of syntactic blend?" In 'Ye whom the charms of grammar please' Studies in English language history in honour of Leiv Egil Breivik, ed. by Kari E. Haugland, Kevin McCafferty & Kristian A. Rusten. (Studies in Historical Linguistics 4). Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 55-74 [first author, with Susana Formoso-Rodriguez].
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(2013). "A tribute to Dieter Kastovsky (1940-2012)". Nexus AEDEAN 2013(1): 128-134 [second author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(2012). Review of Raymond Hickey, ed. Eighteenth-century English: Ideology and change (CUP, 2010). English Language and Linguistics 16(3): 535-549.
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
(2012), ed. Information structure and syntactic change in the history of English. (Oxford Studies in the History of English 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press [second editor, with Anneli Meurman-Solin & Bettelou Los ]. Reviewed in the Linguist List, issue 24.1460 (2013); English Studies 96.4 (2015): 482-483.
(2012). "On the interplay of syntax and information structure: Synchronic and diachronic considerations". In Information structure and syntactic change in the history of English, ed. by Anneli Meurman-Solin, María José López-Couso & Bettelou Los. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-18 [second author, with Bettelou Los & Anneli Meurman-Solin].
(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 [second author, with Bas Aarts & Belén Méndez-Naya].
(2011). “Developmental parallels in diachronic and ontogenetic grammaticalization: Existential there as a test case”. Folia Linguistica 45(1): 81-102.
(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.
(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 [second author, with Teresa Fanego, Belén Méndez-Naya, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo, Elena Seoane & Carlos Prado-Alonso; CD-Rom, 15 pp].
(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 [first editor, with Elena Seoane]. Reviewed in the Linguist List, issue 20.2282 (2009); Studies in Language 34.1 (2010): 195-204; Folia Linguistica 44.2 (2010): 555-568; eLanguage, issue December 2010.
(2008), ed. Theoretical and empirical issues in grammaticalization. (Typological Studies in Language 77). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins [second editor, with Elena Seoane]. Reviewed in the Linguist List, issue 20.2282 (2009); Folia Linguistica 44.2 (2010): 555-568; Studies in Language 35.1 (2011): 228-237.
(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. [Second author, 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. [First author, 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 [first author, 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 [first author, 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 [Second editor, 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 [second author, 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 [third editor, 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 [first author, 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 [first author, 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 [first author, 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 [first author, 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 [second author, 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 [first author, 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 [first author, 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 [second author, 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 [second author, 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 [first author, with Belén Méndez-Naya].
conference presentations:
See the entry Presentations on this website.