Researchers

Beatriz Fernández

Main researcher

ORCID: 0000-0002-7632-7777

I am a lecturer and researcher at the University of the Basque Country (EHU). I currently serve as Director for Research Support. I am a member of the Gogo Elebiduna research group and also an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language (Euskaltzaindia).

Since beginning my doctoral dissertation, my research has focused on morphosyntactic variation, both from a cross-linguistic perspective and within the dialectal variation of Basque. In addition to teaching and research, I am also actively engaged in science outreach.

Ane Berro

Main researcher

ORCID: 0000-0002-6818-506X

I am an Associate Professor at the University of Deusto, in the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. In September 2015, I defended my PhD dissertation on the inner decomposition of verbs and their aspectual interpretation at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the University Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM). In 2017, I was awarded the PhD Extraordinary Award by the University of the Basque Country.

In recent years, my research has focused on voice alternations and their relationship to case and agreement. Together with Beatriz Fernández, I am currently the Principal Investigator of a research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU), which explores argument structure and morphology in Basque.

Jürgen Etxeberria

Pre-doctoral researcher

ORCID: 0000-0002-6949-9984

Since I was a child, I have been interested in travelling and getting to know new languages. So that, I have studied Basque Studies at UPV/EHU (2016-2020) and thanks to the Ikasiker Fellowship of Research (2019-2020), I had the opportunity to collaborate with the research group The Bilingual Mind directed by Itziar Laka. I continued my academic formation coursing the Master program in Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics (2020-21) where I analyzed the syntactic status of locative adpositions. Currently, I keep analyzing the nature of adpositions with Beatriz Fernández and Ane Berro on the Doctoral Programme in Linguistics (2021-now).

Cecilia Fernández-Altonaga

Pre-doctoral researcher

ORCID: 0000-0001-9273-9598

I am a predoctoral researcher at The Bilingual Mind research team (UPV/EHU) and the IKER UMR5478 research center in Bayonne, through a cotutelle between the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (UPPA). I graduated in Basque Studies (UPV/EHU, 2017-2021) and I completed my studies with a masters in Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics (UPV/EHU, 2022). From 2022, I have been working on my dissertation under the supervision of professors Beatriz Fernández (UPV/EHU) and Urtzi Etxeberria (CNRS-IKER). Funding for this research comes from a pre-doctoral grant from the Spanish Ministry of Universities, FPU [FPU21/05860].

The goal of my dissertation is to offer a morphosyntactic and semantic analysis for various modifiers in Basque, particularly those that have traditionally been described as adverbs (e.g. those formed by the suffixes –ki, –ka, –rik and –ta) and thus, to explore the limits between predication and modification.

Kristina Bilbao

Pre-doctoral researcher

ORCID: 0000-0002-3832-6722

I am a pre-doctoral researcher at The Bilingual Mind research group at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). I graduated in Basque Studies (2018–2022) at UPV/EHU and completed a Master’s in Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics at the same university (2022–2023). Since 2023, I have been working on my PhD thesis under the supervision of Beatriz Fernández (UPV/EHU), Ane Berro (University of Deusto), and Irene de la Cruz-Pavía (University of Deusto). Funding for this research comes from a pre-doctoral grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities [FPU22/01851].

One of my biggest academic interests is linguistic variation, specially from a morphosyntactic and typological perspective. In my PhD thesis, I investigate reflexive and reciprocal constructions in Basque. The aim of the thesis is to analyse the morphosyntax and semantics of those constructions, while also exploring their relation to other intransitive structures, such as inchoative or impersonal constructions.

Jon Etxebarria

Pre-doctoral researcher

ORCID: 0009-0006-4124-4011

I graduated in Basque Studies (2020-2024) at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). In the 2023-2024 academic year I had the Ikasiker Research Fellowship [IkasC_2023_1_0067], which allowed me to collaborate with the Bilingual Mind research group under the supervision of Professor Beatriz Fernández (UPV/EHU). Then, in the 2024-2025 academic year, I continued my studies in the Basque Linguistics and Philology Master’s programme at the very same university. Since September 2025, I have been working on my PhD thesis under the supervision of Beatriz Fernández (UPV/EHU), Ane Odria (UPV/EHU) and Irene de la Cruz-Pavia (University of Deusto).

Linguistic variation is one of my main research interests and in my PhD thesis I study the causative structures used in the western dialect of Basque. Specifically, I investigate the relationship between the case and agreement marking of arguments and their animacy in causative constructions with embedded unaccusative verbs.

Izaro Unzaga

Pre-doctoral researcher

ORCID: 

I graduated in Modern Languages (2021-2025) from the University of Deusto. Since September 2025, I am enrolled in a Master’s in Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). I am currently writing my MA thesis under the supervision of Professor Beatriz Fernández (UPV/EHU) and Professor Iker Salaberri (UPV/EHU). This aims to analyse complex predicates with somatic nouns, conducting a contrastive analysis of these structures in Spanish, French, Catalan and Gascon.

Garazi Andres

Pre-doctoral researcher

ORCID: