Anastasia Giannakidou Bio

Professor of Linguistics and the College
Director, Center for Hellenic Studies
Co-director, Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language

Gender Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Email: giannaki@uchicago.edu

Professional interests

Meaning (semantics and pragmatics) and the relation between meaning and form (syntax) in language. I am specifically interested in the relation between truth, veridicality, and grammar, as well as the concept of subjectivity. I study comparatively the variation in syntax and semantics, as well as variation and diversity across languages.

Topics studied: negation, negative polarity; free choice; modality, temporality, and the future past distinction; propositional attitudes and mood choice (subjunctive, indicative); temporal particles (until, before); psycholinguistics of semantic judgment; focus particles (even, only), definiteness and indefiniteness; expressive meaning

Languages studied: Greek, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, French, Chinese, Korean, Basque, ASL

Education

1997    PhD in Linguistics. University of Groningen, The Netherlands.  (The dissertation won the award for Best Linguistics Dissertation 1997 by the Association of Dutch Linguists.)

  • MA in Linguistics and Philosophy of Language. Dept. of Greek, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

1989    BA in Greek Philology. Majors: Classics and Linguistics. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Selected Recent articles

  1. Anastasia Giannakidou and Urtzi Etxeberria. 2018. Assessing the Role of Experimental Evidence for Interface Judgment: Licensing of Negative Polarity Items, Scalar Readings, and Focus. Frontiers in Psychology. Published 21 February 2018.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00059
  2. Giannakidou, A. and A. Mari, 2018. An epistemic analysis of the future: the view from Greek and Italian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 36: 85-129. doi.org/10.1007/s11049-017-9366-z
  3. Giannakidou, A. 2016. The subjunctive as evaluation and nonveridicality. In Blaszczak et. al (eds). Revisiting Mood, Aspect and Modality: What is a linguistic category. University of Chicago Press. 177-217.
  4. Giannakidou, A. and S. Yoon. 2016. Scalar marking without scalar meaning: non-scalar, non-exhaustive NPIs in Greek and Korean. Language 92: 522-556.
  5. Xiang, Ming, Julian Grove, and Anastasia Giannakidou. 2016. Semantic and pragmatic processes in the comprehension of negation: an event related potential study of negative polarity items. Journal of Neurolinguistics 38: 71-88.
  6. Giannakidou, A. 2013. Inquisitive assertions and nonveridicality. In The dynamic, inquisitive, and visionary life of phi, ?phi and possibly phiA festschrift for Jeroen Groenendijk, Martin Stokhof and Frank Veltman, by Maria Aloni, Michael Franke, F. Roelofsen: 115-126.
  7. Giannakidou, A. 2014. The modality of the present and the future. In Natural Language and Linguistic Theory.
  8. Giannakidou, A. and Alda Mari. 2016. Emotive verbs and the choice of subjunctive mood. To appear in Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) 51.
  9. Giannakidou, A. and S. Yoon. 2011. The subjective mode of comparison: metalinguistic comparatives in Greek and Korean. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 29:621-655.
  10. Giannakidou, A. 2006. Only, emotive factives, and the dual nature of polarity dependency. Language, 82: 575-603.
  11. Giannakidou, A. 2001. The meaning of free choice. Linguistics and Philosophy 24: 659-735.

Books

  1. To appear. Nonveridicality in Grammar: propositional attitudes, modality, and negation. University of Chicago Press. (with Alda Mari).
  2. Revisiting Mood, Aspect and Modality: What is a linguistic category? Blaszczak, J., A. Giannakidou, D. Klimek-Jankowska, K. Mygdalski (eds). University of Chicago Press.
  3. Quantification, Definiteness, and Nominalization. Giannakidou Anastasia and Monika Rathert (eds), Oxford University Press.
  4. Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)veridical Dependency. John Benjamins, Amsterdam-Philadelphia. 281 pp.

Recent Grants

2018-2021.  Motion, Emotion, and Meaning. Sign and Body Gesture in Dance Narratives across Cultures

Neubauer Collegium research project. (PIs: Giannakidou, Brentari, Haun Sausy).

2013-2016.  The Body’s Role in Thinking, Performing, and Referencing. Neubauer Collegium large scale initiative. Princple investigators: Susan Goldin-Meadow, Diane Brentari, Anastasia Giannakidou, Sian Beilock

Outreach activities

Anastasia is active in the Greek community and institutions in the Chicagoland area:

  1. Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Chicago, Illinois. Executive Board member, Academic committee chair (since 2011).
  2. National Hellenic Museum, Educational associate. Greek Language and Culture Program (since 2013).
  3. Panhellenic Scholarship Foundation, Academic Committee. (since 2015).

My (unpaid) work for these organizations involves many hours of meetings, conference organizing, talks, and Modern Greek language teaching at the Intermediate level every Saturday and the National Hellenic Museum for the past 6 years.