Sabine Iatridou is a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...

whose work on syntax and the syntax‐semantics interface has helped to delineate theories of tense and

modality Modality may refer to: Humanities * Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations * Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales * Modalitie ...

Academic career

Iatridou was born in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

, spent her childhood in the Netherlands, and then returned to Greece to finish high school and attend college. She earned a DDS in 1982, an MA in

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

in 1986 from the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

, and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

in Linguistics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

(MIT) in 1991. Her dissertation, under the supervision of

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

, explored the topic of

conditionals Conditional (if then) may refer to: *Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y *Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred * Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a c ...

. After graduation she worked as an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

, before returning to MIT to take up a position as Professor. She served as director of the MIT Linguistics PhD program for many years. She has chaired a number of dissertations on topics in theoretical linguistics, as well many exploring semantic and syntactic structures in a range of indigenous languages, including

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

-sponsored work on Mebengokre, an underdescribed language from the Je language family, spoken in the eastern Amazon region of Brazil, and work on relative clauses in the

Uto-Aztecan languages Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...

of Hiaki (

Yaqui The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are a Native American people of the southwest, who speak a Uto-Aztecan language. Their homelands include the Río Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico, and the area below the Gila River in Arizona, Southwestern United ...

) and O'odham ( Papago).

Awards

In 1994 and in 1997 Iatridou received the National Science Foundation's Young Investigator Award. Iatridou was inducted as a Fellow of the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

in 2016. In 2016, The

University of Crete The University of Crete (UoC; Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης) is a multi-disciplinary, research-oriented institution in Crete, Greece, located in the cities of Rethymno (official seat) and Heraklion, and one of the country's most aca ...

's Department of Philology awarded an honorary doctorate to Iatridou. In 2020, she was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

for the field of study of linguistics.

Key publications

* Sabine Iatridou. 1990. "About agr (p)," ''Linguistic Inquiry.'' * Sabine Iatridou. 2000. "The grammatical ingredients of counterfactuality," ''Linguistic Inquiry.'' * Sabine Iatridou,

Elena Anagnostopoulou Elena Anagnostopoulou (born 27 January 1967 in Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a popul ...

, and Roumyana Izvorski. 2003. "Observations about the form and meaning of the Perfect."''Perfect Explorations.'' * Kai Von Fintel and Sabine Iatridou. 2008. "How to Say ''Ought'' in Foreign: The Composition of Weak Necessity Modals," ''Time and modality.''
“Our 'even'- Presentation at Universität Göttingen”, September 17, 2014.

References

Writers from Thessaloniki
American people of Greek descent Linguists from the United States Women linguists University of Hawaiʻi alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty Living people Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America Year of birth missing (living people) Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni {{Linguist-stub