Assistant Professor

Office:  419 AH
mgonzalez-rivera@uh.edu

Dr. Melvin González-Rivera is an assistant professor of Spanish linguistics in the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Houston. Dr. González-Rivera holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic linguistics from The Ohio State University. He specializes in syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and their interface in grammar, with an emphasis on Caribbean Spanish. He has also authored and co-edited of several books and articles on topics related to language, semantics and philosophy.

Education

• Ph.D. Hispanic Linguistics – The Ohio State University (2011)
• M.A. Linguistics – University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras (2005)    
• B.A. Hispanic Studies – University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras (2000)

Research and Teaching Interests

Syntax, semantics and pragmatics with an emphasis on Caribbean Spanish

Courses Taught

Graduate:

• SPAN 6308 - Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics
• SPAN 6356 - Problems in Spanish Syntax

Selected Publications (2014+)

Books

• Under contract - Sobre la gramática del español puertorriqueño: sintaxis, semántica y pragmática / Routledge
• 2015 - El gerundio en el español portocruceño / Lincom Europa

Edited Volumes

• Forthcoming - Hispanic contact linguistics: theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives (with L. Ortiz López and R. Guzzardo) / John Benjamins
• Forthcoming - Research on Caribbean Spanish in the United States (with W. Valentín-Márquez) / Routledge
• 2018 - Lenguaje, poesía y sentido (with J. Gutiérrez-Rexach and Y. Iglesias-Vázquez) / Peter Lang
• 2018 - Current research in Puerto Rican linguistics / Routledge
• 2015 - New perspectives on Hispanic contact linguistics in the Americas (with S. Sessarego) / Iberoamericana

Journal Articles (peer-reviewed)

• 2018 - El español y el inglés en Puerto Rico: una polémica de más de un siglo (with L. Ortiz López) / Centro Journal 30: 1 (pp. 106-131) (The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY)
• 2017 - Lengua, migración y contacto en Latinoamérica (with Y. Iglesias-Vázquez) / Oltreoceano: Rivista sulle migrazioni (pp. 137-145) (Università Degli Studi di Udine, Italy)
• 2016 - Pragmatic function impairment and dementia (with S. Schatz) / Pragmatics and Cognition 23:2 (pp. 324-342)
• 2014 - Puerto Rican/Porto-Crucian Spanish and the –ndo morpheme / International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest 33:1 (pp. 39-59)
• 2014 -  On the grammar of (elative) bien in Puerto Rican Spanish (with J. Gutiérrez-Rexach) / International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest 33:1 (pp. 61-73)

Book chapters (peer-reviewed)

• Forthcoming - Contact linguistics across the Hispanic world (with L. Ortiz López and R. Guzzardo) / Hispanic contact linguistics: theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives / Edited by L.A. Ortiz López, R. Guzzardo and M. González-Rivera / John Benjamins
• Forthcoming - Caribbean Spanish dialects in the US: theoretical, empirical and sociolinguistic perspectives (W. Valentín-Márquez) / Research on Caribbean Spanish in the United States / Edited by W. Valentín-Márquez and M. González-Rivera / Routledge
• Forthcoming - Executive functioning and inter-personal skill preservation in an Alzheimer's patient (with S. Schatz) / Futher advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy, part 2: theories and applications / Edited by A. Capone / Springer
• 2017 -  Adverbial elatives in Caribbean Spanish (with J. Gutiérrez-Rexach) / Boundaries, phases, and interfaces. Case studies in honor of Violeta Demonte / Edited by O. Fernandez Soriano and E. Castroviejo / John Benjamins (107-128)
• 2016 - Generalized gradability and extremeness in Puerto Rican Spanish (with R. Padilla-Reyes and J. Gutiérrez-Rexach) / Inquiries in Hispanic linguistics: from theory to empirical evidence / Edited by A. Cuza, L. Czerwionka and D. Olson / John Benjamins (pp. 95-110)
• 2014 - Degree quantification and scope in Puerto Rican Spanish (with J. Gutiérrez-Rexach) / Variation within and across Romance languages / Edited by M-H Côté and E. Mathieu / John Benjamins (pp. 199-211)
• 2014 - Spanish predicate verbless clause and the left periphery (with J. Gutiérrez-Rexach) / Left sentences peripheries in Spanish: diachronic, variationist and typological perspectives / Edited by A. Dufter and S. Octavio Toledo / John Benjamins (pp. 101-124)

Encyclopedia entries (peer-reviewed)

• Forthcoming - Verbless predicative clauses in Romance languages: syntax, semantics, and variation / Oxford Encyclopedia of Romance Linguistics / Edited by F. Gardani and M. Loporcaro / Oxford University Press
•  2016 - La predicación / Enciclopedia de lingüística hispánica / Edited by J. Gutiérrez-Rexach / Routledge (pp. 809-820)