Born in Heraklion, Crete, in 1938, she received her B.A. from the Department of English Language and Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 1962 and her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Indiana University (U.S.A.) as a Fulbright Scholar. She then taught Greek and linguistics and was a researcher at the Center for African Studies at Indiana University (1962-1967). She was subsequently appointed Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine (1967-1969) where she taught Ancient Greek and Linguistics. In 1970, she was appointed to a permanent post at the University of Reading, where she taught theoretical linguistics, syntax and morphophonology. She retired from Reading University in 2004 as Professor of Linguistics, a post she held since 1995. In addition, she was Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Crete (1989-1992). She also served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Indiana (1974-1975) and at the University of Crete (1982-1989).
Her many and significant achievements include the establishment of the International Conference of Greek Linguistics in 1993 (in collaboration with K. Nicolaidis), her contribution to the establishment of the Annual Meetings of the Linguistics Department of the School of Philology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (in collaboration with D. Theofanopoulou-Kontou and T. Christidis), her contribution to the establishment and co-editing of the international Journal of Greek Linguistics (in collaboration with G. Drachman, G. Horrocks and B. Joseph), as well as the establishment and directorship of the Center for Greek Studies at the University of Reading in 2002 (in collaboration with T. Duff). She also served as a scientific advisor to the project Paideia Omogenon (‘Education of Expatriates’) (1997-2008) and as the coordinator of the scientific committee of the project in Great Britain.
Among her most important achievements is that she imparted her love for linguistics by teaching a significant number of Greek linguists, who subsequently became faculty members in various universities in Greece.
Her innovative research covers the phonology, morphology and syntax of Greek. She has investigated multiple and complex phenomena including stress, the morphophonological analysis of the verb, propositional structure, clitic pronouns, the null subject, verb inflections, complement clauses and the phenomena of control and raising. Within the framework of generative grammar, she has offered very insightful and pioneering research on the analysis of Greek with a main emphasis on syntax. Also exceptional is her contribution to Greek grammar including her established grammar books and textbooks.
The complete list of her publications can be found here.
Photo collection: Irene over the years
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