Ianthi Maria Tsimpli
Contact information
imt@enl.auth.gr
Tel: +30 2310 99 7444
Fax: +30 2310 99 7432
Academic profile
Ianthi Maria Tsimpli is Professor of Psycholinguistics:
Language Acquisition and Language Disorders at the Dept. of Theoretical and
Applied Linguistics of the School of English, Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki. She is also Director of the Language Development Research Lab at
the School of English. She holds a BA in Modern Greek Literature and
Byzantine Studies from the University of Athens, a Diploma in Linguistics and a
PhD in Linguistics from University College London (1992). Her doctorate thesis
was published in 1996 in the series Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics,
Garland with the title Functional Categories and Maturation: The
Prefunctional Stage of Language Acquisition. She
taught Linguistics at University College London, University of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne and University of Cambridge, UK. She teaches and researches
in First and Second Language Acquisition, Psycholinguistics, and Theoretical
Syntax. She has extensively worked on the case of
Christopher, a
polyglot-savant, with Neil Smith with whom she co-authored the book The Mind
of a Savant: Language Learning and Modularity (1995, Blackwell) as well as
a number of published articles (Lingua, Journal of Neurolinguistics, Journal
of Linguistics, Journal of Individual and Learning Differences). A number of
articles co-authored with Gary Morgan, Neil Smith and Bencie Woll have also been
published on a subsequent research project investigating Christopher’s ability
to learn British Sign Language. She is currently co-authoring (with Morgan,
Smith and Woll) a book on this topic with the title Signs of a Savant
(CUP).
She has also published many articles on L1 and L2 acquisition, SLI and Syntax in
international journals and books (Linguistic Review, Brain and Language,
Journal of Greek Linguistics, International Journal of Bilingualism, Lingua,
Second Language Research). The Language Development Lab which she directs is
doing research on first and second language development, SLI, Broca’s aphasia,
native adult, child and L2 sentence processing and eye-movements. A large part
of this research is externally funded by research projects. Some of the findings
of recent and current research from this lab, co-authored with Despina
Papadopoulou, have already been presented and published in conference
proceedings (BUCLD, GALA, ISTAL, ICGL) as well as in journals and book
volumes.
For a full CV click here.
PhD supervision
- Recent and current PhD research degree supervision topics include:
- First and Second Language Acquisition
- SLI
- Broca’s aphasia
- Language Attrition
- Bilingualism
- Theoretical Syntax
Visiting
- 2003. Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics, University of
Cambridge.
- 2005. Collaborative Research Center on Multilingualism, University of
Hamburg.
- 2006. Dept. of English Studies, University of Cyprus.
Publications
Books:
- Smith, N.V., Tsimpli, I.M. (1995). The Mind of a Savant: Language Learning
and Modularity, Blackwell.
- Smith, N.V., Tsimpli, I.M. (1999). The Mind of a Savant: Language Learning
and Modularity, Japanese Translation, ISBN: 4-7885-0675-0, 304pp.
- Tsimpli, I.M. (1996). The Prefunctional Stage of First Language
Acquisition: A Crosslinguistic Study. L. Horn (ed.), Outstanding
Dissertations in Linguistics, Yale University, Garland, New York.
- Smith, N.V., I.M. Tsimpli, G. Morgan and B. Woll (2010) Signs of a
Savant: Language against the odds. Cambridge University Press.
Selected (recent) Articles:
Copyright Notice
The publishers hold the copyright of these articles. The PDFs are provided here
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relevant copyright laws. You may not distribute them or use them for any
commercial enterprise.
- Tsimpli, I.M., Sorace, A., Heycock, C, Filiaci, F. (2004). First Language
Attrition and Syntactic Subjects: A Study of Greek and Italian Near-Native
Speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 8, 257-277. [pdf]
- Tsimpli, I.M. (2004). Features in L1 and L2 acquisition: evidence from Greek
clitics and determiners”. In H. Hendricks (ed.) Analyse comparative des
processus d'acquisition en L1 et L2, Special Issue of AILE (Acquisition et
Interaction en Langue Étrangère), 20, 87-128.
- Tsimpli, I.M. (2005). Peripheral Positions in early Greek. In M.Stavrou and
A. Terzi (eds.) Advances in Greek Generative Syntax, Linguistics Today,
pp. 179-216. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [pdf]
- Parodi, T., Tsimpli, I.M. (2005). ‘Real’ and Apparent Optionality in second
language grammars: finiteness and pronouns in null operator structures. Second Language Research, 21, 3, 250-285 [pdf]
- Despina Papadopoulou & Ianthi Tsimpli (2005). Morphological Cues in
Children’s Processing of Ambiguous Sentences: a Study of Subject / Object
Ambiguities in Greek. In BUCLD 29, 471-481 [pdf]
- Tsimpli, I.M. (2006). Η Φωνή στην Ελληνική: Περιγραφή του συστήματος και
μελέτη της ανάπτυξής του στην ελληνική ως μητρική και δεύτερη/ξένη γλώσσα (Voice
in Greek: a description of the system and a developmental study of voice in
Greek as a native and non-native language). In Η Σύνταξη στη Μάθηση και στη
Διδασκαλία της Ελληνικής ως Ξένης Γλώσσας, Patakis Publishers.
- Tsimpli, I.M., Sorace, A. (2006). Differentiating interfaces: L2 performance
in syntaxsemantics and syntaxdiscourse phenomena. In D. Bamman, T. Magnitskaia,
and C. Zaller (eds.), Proceedings of the 30th annual Boston University
Conference on Language Development, BUCLD 30, pp. 653-664. Somerville, MA. :
Cascadilla Press. [pdf]
- Tsimpli, I.M., Papadopoulou, D. (2006). Aspect and argument realization: a
study on antecedentless null objects in Greek. Lingua, 116, 10, 1595-1615
[pdf]
- Roussou, A., Tsimpli, I.M. (2006). On Greek VSO again! Journal of
Linguistics, 42, 317-354 [pdf]
- Tsimpli, Ianthi Maria. 2006. “The acquisition of voice and transitivity
alternations in Greek as native and second language”. In
Paths
of Development in L1 and L2 acquisition, Unsworth, Sharon, Teresa Parodi,
Antonella Sorace and Martha Young-Scholten (eds.), 15–55. [pdf]
- Tsimpli, I.M. (2006) Variation in Second Language Acquisition. In Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd Edition. Elsevier. [pdf]
- Tsimpli, I.M., Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The interpretability hypothesis:
evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second
Language Research, 23, 2, 215-242 [pdf]
- Tsimpli, I.M., Mastropavlou, M. (2007). Feature Interpretability in L2
Acquisition and SLI: Greek Clitics and Determiners. In H. Goodluck, J. Liceras &
H. Zobl (Eds.). The Role of Formal Features in Second Language Acquisition,
pp.143-183, Routledge. [pdf]
- Mastropavlou, M., Papadopoulou, D., Tsimpli, I.M. (2007). Η μελέτη της
γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας γραπτού λόγου σε παιδιά με αναγνωστικές δυσκολίες. In
Βλασσοπούλου, Μ., Γιαννετοπούλου, Α., Διαμαντή, Μ., Κιρπότιν, Λ., Λεβαντή, Ε.,
Λευθέρη, Κ. & Γ. Σακελλαρίου (Eds.),
Γλωσσικές Δυσκολίες και Γραπτός Λόγος
στο Πλαίσιο της Σχολικής Μάθησης, pp. 281-291, Εκδόσεις Γρηγόρη.
- Morgan, G., Smith, N.V., Tsimpli, I.M., Woll, B. (2007). Classifier learning
and modality in a polyglot savant. Lingua 117(7), 1339-1353 [pdf]
- Tsimpli, Ianthi Maria and Despina Papadopoulou (2009). “Aspect and the
Interpretation of Motion Verbs in L2 Greek”. In Representational Deficits in
SLA, Snape, Neal, Yan-kit Ingrid Leung and Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.),
187–227. [pdf]
- Mastropavlou, M., Tsimpli, I.M. (in press). Complementisers and Subordination
in Typical Language Acquisition and SLI. Lingua.