Key details
Professor Maria J Arche
Deputy Director, Institute of Inclusive Communities and Environments; Professor of Linguistics & Spanish; Lead, Centre for Research in Language and Heritage (CREL)
María J. Arche obtained a PhD in Theoretical Linguistics & Language Acquisition under the supervision of Tim Stowell (University California Los Angeles) and Violeta Demonte (Autonomous University of Madrid). She later on held an ESRC postdoctoral position at the University of Southampton and visiting scholarships at the Universities of Massachusetts Amherst, Groningen and Tromsø.
María does research in the (morpho)syntax-semantics interface, to understand the correspondences between forms and meaning in language. She has focused on tense and aspect, studying the elements languages have to convey information about time (tense and aspect) across categories (verbs, but also nouns and adjectives). Maria has investigated these topics in the grammar of Spanish and also their acquisition and crosslinguistic variation, publishing works that capture empirical data from large sets of languages and detailed theoretical analyses.
She has been a fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study (NIAS) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in 2021-2022 and 2024, as coordinator of a NIAS-Lorentz theme-group and individually. María also serves as the secretary of the British Committee for Linguistics in Education (CLiE) and, since 2018, has created initiatives to increase the understanding of language difficulties across populations.
Outcomes of this work include the ATLAS Manifesto Think Language First, launched at the House of Lords in January 2024 in partnership with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy.
María Arche is the Chair of the transnational EU COST Action Justice to Youth Language Needs, which comprises linguists, speech and language therapists as well as legal, health and youth justice professionals from over 30 countries. The platform is set to address the compromised access to justice of (young) people because of their un-identified language needs, create effective language assessments and improve awareness across services.
Responsibilities within the university
- Deputy Director, Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments
- Lead, Centre for Research in Language and Heritage -CREL
- LING 1039 Syntax and Semantics (MA)
- LING 1037 Language Variation and Acquisition (MA)
- LING 1032 Advanced Language Structure and Meaning
- LING 1045 Clinical Linguistics
Awards
Erasmus + Scheme, University of Groningen. 2018
As Principal Investigator
- 2021-2022 Accessible Tool for Language Assessment at Schools (ATLAS)
Theme-Group Fellowship, Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Lorentz Centre. - 2018-2019 Tense as a clinical marker, University of Greenwich Competitive Round
- 2014-2015 Copulas across languages, University of Greenwich Competitive Round
- 2011-2014 The morpho-syntax of adjectives, University of Greenwich Competitive Round
As Project member and beneficiary in different roles
- 2014-2017 Grasping Meaning across Languages and Learners (GraMALL), Dutch NWO
- Workgroup Leader, Grammar tools and Perspective Taking
- 2013-2015 Semantic and procedural content of Spanish categories, Spanish Ministry of Economy
PhD scholarships
- 2017 50% University of Greenwich 50% University of Groningen
- 2012 University of Greenwich
Research / Scholarly interests
- (Morpho)syntax-semantics interface
- Language development across populations
- Tense and Aspect across categories, copulas
Arche, M. J. 2006. Individuals in Time: Tense, Aspect and the Individual/Stage Distinction, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Arche, M.J. (ed.) 2014.Aspect across languages: semantic primitives, morpho-syntactic representation and the limits of cross-linguistic variation. Topic/Comment Special Issue of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Springer. [data from 12 languages]
Arche, M.J., A. Fábregas and R. Marín (eds.) 2014. Aspect and argument structure of adjectives and participles, Special Issue for the journal Lingua 149.
Arche, M.J., A. Fábregas and R. Marín (eds.). 2019. The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages, Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, Oxford University Press. [data from 17 languages]
Arche, M.J., J-W Zwart, H. Demirdache and H. Borer (eds.). In press. Footprints of Phrase Structure. Studies in syntax in honor of Tim Stowell. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [data from 15 languages]
Key funded projects
As Principal Investigator
2023 Language development in late childhood and adolescence: next steps in bridging research, practice and policy, British Academy & Wellcome Trust conference grant (March 2025) £23,400
2023-2027 Justice for language needs: human rights undermined by an invisible disadvantage, Chair COST Action, 160+ researchers/practitioners/stakeholders 30 countries c.a. €600,000
2023-2025 When the questions matter: A pilot study on police interviews with young offenders across services, University of Greenwich £15,000
2021-2022 Accessible Tool for Language Assessment at Schools (ATLAS), Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies, international NIAS-Lorentz Theme Group Fellowship, value €200,000
Media activity
Maria's Inaugural Professorial Lecture here
View TEDx talk Why We Need More Linguists in Schools
On Perfective but incomplete situations, SOAS, University of London
Recent publications
Article
Dominguez, Laura and , Arche, Maria J (2021), The ‘comparative logic’ and why we need to explain interlanguage grammars. Frontiers Media S.A.. In: , , , . Frontiers Media S.A., Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 717635 ISSN: 1664-1078 (Print), 1664-1078 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717635).
Arche, María J. , Fábregas, Antonio, Marin, Rafael Marín (2021), On event-denoting deadjectival nominalizations. De Gruyter Mouton. In: , , , . De Gruyter Mouton, The Linguistic Review, 38 (2) . pp. 191-231 ISSN: 0167-6318 (Print), 1613-3676 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2021-2063) NB Item availability restricted.
Domínguez, Laura , Arche, María J., Myles, Florence (2017), Spanish Imperfect revisited: exploring L1 influence in the reassembly of imperfective features onto new L2 forms. SAGE Publications. In: , , , . SAGE Publications, Second Language Research, 33 (4) . pp. 431-457 ISSN: 0267-6583 (Print), 1477-0326 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658317701991) NB Item availability restricted.
Book section
Arche, Maria and , Dominguez, Laura (2024), Chapter 16 - Viewpoint aspect. Routledge - Taylor & Francis. In: , , In: Tania Ionin, Silvina Montrul, Roumyana Slabakova (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, Morphosyntax and Semantics. Routledge - Taylor & Francis, New York (1st) . ISBN: 9781032535005 (doi: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003412373/routledge-handbook-second-language-acquisition-morphosyntax-semantics-tania-ionin-silvina-montrul-roumyana-slabakova) NB Item availability restricted.
Dominguez, Laura and , Arche, Maria (2022), Early use of null and overt subjects in L2 Spanish: evidence from two oral tasks. Language Science Press. In: , , In: Kevin McManus, Monika S. Schmid (eds.), How special are early birds?: Foreign language teach- ing and learning. Language Science Press, Berlin (1st) . pp. 183-218 . ISBN: 9783961103898; 9783985540471 (doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6811427).
Arche, María J. , Fábregas, Antonio, Marín, Rafael (2019), Main questions in the study of copulas: categories, structures and operations. Oxford University (OUP). In: , , In: María J. Arche, Antonio Fábregas, Rafael Marín (eds.), The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages. Oxford University (OUP), Oxford (1st) . pp. 1-30 . ISBN: 9780198829850 (doi: ) NB Item availability restricted.
Arche, Maria J. , Fábregas, Antonio, Marín, Rafael (2017), Towards a unified treatment of Spanish copulas. John Benjamins. In: , , In: Silvia Perpiñán, David Heap, Itziri Moreno-Villamar, Adriana Soto-Corominas (eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, The Netherlands , 11 (44) . pp. 33-52 . ISBN: 9789027203915 (doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.11.02arc) NB Item availability restricted.
Conference item
Arche, Mariá J. and , (2018), The Seeds of Aspect. In: Invited Talk at Pompeu Fabra university, 22nd April 2018, Barcelona, Spain , . , (doi: ).
Arche, María J. and , (2018), Mini Course on the Syntax & Semantics of Aspect. In: Invited_Mini Course on Aspect, 19/01/2018, University of Southampton , . , (doi: ).
Arche, Maria and , (2017), Layers of Aspect. In: Seminar on Theoretical Syntax and Semantics, 17/11/2017, Groningen , . , (doi: ).
Arche, M. J. and , Vázquez-López, P. (2017), Syntax matters in the acquisition of Spanish copulas. In: Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, 7-9 September 2017, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca , . , (doi: ).
Arche, Maria and , (2017), Notes on the syntax of deadjectival nominalizations. In: Workshop on Morphosyntax, 17 - 18 July 2017, Girona , . , (doi: ).
Arche, María J. and , (2017), Perfective but incomplete accomplishments. In: LEL (Linguistics and English Language) Research Seminar, Tuesday, 28 February 2017, 4.15 pm - 5.30 pm., Ellen Wilkinson Building, room A2.6,Department of Linguistics and English Language at The University of Manchester , . , (doi: https://manling.wordpress.com/2017/02/27/maria-j-arche-at-lel-research-seminar-feb-28/).
Arche, María J. and , (2017), The semantics of viewpoint aspect in nonculminating accomplishments. In: TELIC 2017, 12-14 January 2017, Stuttgart, Germany , . , (doi: https://telic2017.wordpress.com/).
Edited book
Arche, María J. , Fábregas, Antonio, Marín, Rafael (2019), The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages. Oxford University Press (OUP). In: , , , . Oxford University Press (OUP), Oxford (1st) . ISBN: 9780198829850 (doi: http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-grammar-of-copulas-across-languages-9780198829867?lang=en&cc=gb) NB Item availability restricted.
Other
Arche, Maria and , (2018), Syntax, semantics and morphology in second language acquisition. Invited Keynote Lecture. In: , , , . Invited Keynote Lecture, (doi: ).
Arche, Maria and , (2018), Rethinking the syntax of aspect. Invited Talk Autonomous University of Barcelona. In: , , , . Invited Talk Autonomous University of Barcelona, (doi: ).