Nadia Takhtaganova successfully defends her PhD Thesis Proposal!

On May 14th, 2024 PhD student Nadia Takhtaganova successfully defended her thesis proposal, Mapping Spatial Expressions in Huasteca Nahuatl.

Working on language documentation in Latin America, Takhtaganova is currently studying the interaction of relational nouns and case marking in Nahuatl, an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Eastern Mexico. Incorporating historical and generative linguistic frameworks with her thesis, she aims to train community members in linguistic research methodology to "raise metalinguistic awareness" and reduce stigmatization of language change.

We highly recommend speaking to Nadia about this exciting work, a "morphosyntactic snapshot of typological change in spatial expressions in Huasteca Nahuatl."

Her thesis proposal committee, consisting of Pedro Mateo Pedro and Michelle Troberg, as well as Nadia’s supervisor, María Cristina Cuervo, are excited to see where she goes next, and to see the successful completion and defense of her PhD thesis. 

We at the Linguistics Department are so proud of Nadia for all her hard work! Congratulations!