The Architecture of Knowledge: Why Pakistan Must Rebuild Its Universities Before It Can Rebuild Its Economy
Every serious industrial plan of the last three decades has assumed a research base the country has not funded, staffed, or protected.
Riaz Laghari — essays on linguistics, English teaching and higher education
Lecturer in English · Syntax & psycholinguistics · Islamabad
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Linguistics Why did syntax evolve in the first place?
The adaptationist story and the by-product story make different predictions about acquisition. Only one survives contact with the data.
Linguistics Pronominal Systems and Morphosyntactic Variation
Sindhi, Urdu and English draw the person–number grid in three different places. The differences are not decorative.
Essays & Opinion Kashmir's Strongest Defense Is Good Governance
Argument by grievance has a ceiling. Administrative competence does not.
Linguistics Why did syntax evolve in the first place?
The adaptationist story and the by-product story make different predictions about acquisition. Only one survives contact with the data.
Linguistics Pronominal Systems and Morphosyntactic Variation
Sindhi, Urdu and English draw the person–number grid in three different places. The differences are not decorative.
Essays & Opinion Kashmir's Strongest Defense Is Good Governance
Argument by grievance has a ceiling. Administrative competence does not.
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Essays & Opinion The Architecture of Knowledge: Why Pakistan Must Rebuild Its Universities Before It Can Rebuild Its Economy
Every serious industrial plan of the last three decades has assumed a research base the country has not funded, staffed, or protected.
Linguistics Why did syntax evolve in the first place?
The adaptationist story and the by-product story make different predictions about acquisition. Only one survives contact with the data.
Linguistics Pronominal Systems and Morphosyntactic Variation
Sindhi, Urdu and English draw the person–number grid in three different places. The differences are not decorative.
Essays & Opinion Kashmir's Strongest Defense Is Good Governance
Argument by grievance has a ceiling. Administrative competence does not.
Linguistics Modern Syntax: Schools of Contemporary Syntactic Theory
Minimalism, HPSG, LFG and construction grammar, described by what each one refuses to give up.
Linguistics Modern Syntax: Timeline
From Syntactic Structures to the Minimalist Program, with the detours that mattered.
English & ELT Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation for Language Learners
The twelve errors that account for most of the marks lost, and the order in which to fix them.
English & ELT Public Speaking, Persuasion & Debate
Rhetoric is teachable, and most of it is structure rather than delivery.
English & ELT SLANG: Language, Identity and Social Power
Who gets to call a variety 'incorrect', and what that judgement is actually doing.
Resources Thesis Writing in Linguistics
A chapter-by-chapter plan for a first thesis, written for supervisors' actual expectations.
Resources Essential Thesis Repositories Every Linguistics Researcher Should Know
Eleven open archives, what each one is good for, and how to search them without wasting an afternoon.
Exams (IELTS/CSS) Winning a Chevening Scholarship as a Linguistics Student
What the four essays are really asking, and why most applications answer a different question.