Anastasia Giannakidou

Dr. Anastasia Giannakidou is a Professor of Linguistics and the College at the University of Chicago. She studied Classical Philology and Linguistics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, and received her PhD in Linguistics from University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She is one of the founders and the director of the newly established Hellenic Studies Center at the University of Chicago. She is also a co-director of the Center for Gesture, Sign and Language, and a collaborator in the Bilingualism Matters initiative in Chicago. Anastasia's main interests are on linguistic meaning, the relation between meaning and form, and how language is used to convey subjectivity, including ideology.

Prof. Giannakidou is particularly interested in studying variation and diversity across languages. Her main language of study is Modern Greek; and she has done comparative work on German, Dutch, Spanish, Basque, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese, and has worked on diachronic syntax and semantics. She is the author of numerous articles and books including Polarity Sensitivity as Nonveridical Dependency, Definiteness and Nominalization, Mood, Tense, Aspect revisited. Anastasia is presently working on a book entitled Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought, forthcoming with University of Chicago Press.

Books:

• Veridicality in Grammar and Thought: Modality, Propositional Attitudes, and Mood choice. With Alda Mari. Under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Pp. 297. Publication date Fall 2020.
• 2013. The Nominal Structure in Slavic and beyond. Urtzi Etxeberria, Lilia Schurcks, Anastasia Giannakidou (eds). Series: Studies in Generative Grammar 116, Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN: 978-1-61451-279-0
• 2009. Quantification, Definiteness, and Nominalization. Giannakidou Anastasia and Monika Rathert, (eds). Oxford University Press, Series Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics. Giannakidou, A. 1998. Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)veridical Dependency. John Benjamins, Amsterdam-Philadelphia. 281 pp.

Selected Articles/Chapters:

• Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2018. "A critical assessment of ‘exhaustivity’ for Negative Polarity Items: the view from Greek, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese." Acta Linguistica Academica 65: 503-545.
• Giannakidou, A. and Alda Mari. 2018. "The semantic roots of positive polarity with epistemic modal adverbs." Linguistics and Philosophy 41(6), 623-66.
• 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
• 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.
• Giannakidou, A. 2006. "Only, emotive factives, and the dual nature of polarity dependency." Language, 82: 575-603.
• Giannakidou, A. 2001. "The meaning of free choice." Linguistics and Philosophy 24: 659- 735.

Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics (LING 20301) - Spring 2020

This course familiarizes students with what it means to study meaning and use in natural language. By “meaning” we refer to the (for the most part, logical) content of words, constituents, and sentences (semantics), and by “use” we intend to capture how this content is implemented in discourse and what kinds of additional dimensions of meaning may then arise (pragmatics). Some of the core empirical phenomena that have to do with meaning are introduced: lexical (i.e., word) meaning, reference, quantification, logical inferencing, presupposition, implicature, context sensitivity, cross-linguistic variation, speech acts. Main course goals are not only to familiarize students with the basic topics in semantics and pragmatics but also to help them develop basic skills in semantic analysis and argumentation.

Semantics Seminar: Crosslinguistic Semantics (LING 42100) - Spring 2020

Course Description: TBD.

Language & Ideology (LING 28810/LING 38810) - Autumn 2020

Course Description: TBD.