Student profiles
Rachael Cornwell
Email: R.H.Cornwell@liverpool.ac.uk
Previous Education
University of Liverpool BA (Hons) Egyptology with Ancient Greek (1st class) 2017
University of Liverpool MA Egyptology (distinction) 2018
Thesis Title
Evidence for Resynthesis in Writing: A Study with a Primary Focus on Egyptian and a Cross Linguistic Comparison.
Supervisors
Professor Mark Collier & Dr Roland Enmarch
Research Summary
My thesis investigates the evidence from ancient Egyptian written sources for the ‘linguistic cycle’, a term used to describe the cycle of change between a language being predominantly synthetic or analytic. I will be focussing on how the changes occurred in the diachronic development of the Egyptian language in order to investigate which linguistic processes were involved in creating the overlying trend.
Using this evidence from Egyptian as a framework, a comparison will be made with other languages where evidence of the linguistic cycle is currently disputed by scholars due to it being somewhat limited and less obvious than in a language such as Egyptian. This cross linguistic comparison will add evidence to the currently unanswered question as to whether the linguistic cycle is a universal trend.
Research Interests
Ancient Languages, Historical Corpus Linguistics, Language Change, Diachronic Typology