PhD student research interests
Alison Cort
Working title for PhD thesis
Recent and current change in the modal verb.
Supervisor: Professor David Denison.
Research
The focus of my current research is change in the category of Modal verbs in English between 1650 and the Present Day. My dissertation draws on corpus linguistics, morpho-syntax including theories of fuzziness in grammar, semantics and to some extent sociolinguistics and child language.
Papers
August 2004 'You better believe it's modal. A category based study of change from 1650-Present Day'. Paper to be given at the 13th International Conference in English Historical Linguistics, Vienna.
March 2004 'Beware of the corpus!'. Paper presented at 13th Manchester Postgraduate Linguistics Conference.
September 2003 ' "May you open this for me?" - The rise of hypercorrect second person
may questions in a Gloucestershire nursery school'. Paper presented at the 4th Triangle Colloquium, Sheffield.
September 2000 'You'd better believe it's modal, but why isn't it supposed to be?' Paper presented at the 1st Triangle Colloquium, Sheffield.
Teaching
I have contributed teaching to undergraduate courses on historical linguistics and English grammar and to an MA course on change in English grammar, as well as sessions on linguistic software and online resources.
Background
BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature (University of Manchester)
MA in English Language and Linguistics (University of Manchester)
My e-mail address is alison.b.cort@stud.man.ac.uk.