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Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics

 

Dr Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga

Dr Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga
Position(s): 
Affiliated Lecturer
Department/Section: 
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages & Linguistics
Contact details: 
Location: 

Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages & Linguistics Raised Faculty Building University of Cambridge Sidgwick Avenue Cambridge CB3 9DA United Kingdom

About: 

I am currently a Senior Research Associate at the University of East Anglia working on “Experimental argument analysis: Reasoning with stereotypes” (PI: Eugen Fischer, Co-I: Paul Engelhardt). I am also an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge, where I hold a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant for the project: “Investigating generics across languages: a toolkit”.

I am a theoretical linguist investigating meaning in language. I investigate issues in semantics and its interfaces with syntax and pragmatics, as well as in language acquisition and bi- and multilingualism. In my post-doctoral research, I have been combining theoretical and experimental methods. I am also interested in philosophy of language.

My main area of research is generic generalisations (statements like ‘Tigers have stripes’ and ‘A cat lands on its feet’) drawing on data from mono- and bilingual adult and child populations (of Greek, English, German, Spanish and Catalan). Growing out of my research on generics both from a theoretical and an experimental perspective investigating generics across a wider range of languages has become the focus of my current research with the aim to provide the first systematic descriptive characterisation of generics both within and across language families via the use of a toolkit.

I have held teaching and research positions in the UK (University of Cambridge, Queen Mary University of London, University College London, University of Greenwich), Germany (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Greece (University of Crete) and Spain (Universitat Pompeu Fabra).

My PhD dissertation (‘Cognitive science and language’ program at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) analysed the notion of definiteness and the interplay of the definite article with other determiners and quantifiers in Greek. My supervisors were Louise McNally and Josep Maria Brucart.

I studied Greek Philology with a specialisation in Linguistics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. I then received a DEA (MPhil equivalent) and a PhD in Cognitive Science and Language from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona completing an interdisciplinary program in philosophy, linguistics and psychology.

Research interests: 
  • Formal and Experimental Semantics and its Interfaces with Syntax and Pragmatics
  • Formal and Experimental Pragmatics
  • Cross-linguistic Semantics
  • Language acquisition
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Bi- and Multilingualism
Recent research projects: 

From 2014 to 2015 I was a Post-doctoral Research Associate in the BA/Leverhulme funded project ‘Learning about the world through generic statements: a cross-linguistic perspective’ awarded to Dr Napoleon Katsos and Dr Linnaea Stockall.

Published works: 

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, and Alexiadou, Artemis. (2025). Verbal fluency in Greek: Performance differences between L1Greek-L2English late bilingual and Greek monolingual speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 28(3), 676-683. doi:10.1017/S1366728924000671 [first published online 02 December 2024]

Fischer, Eugen, Engelhardt, Paul, Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Stanton, Kate Hazel. (2024). Reasoning with Polysemes: When Default Inferences Beat Contextual Information. In In L. K. Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey, & E. Hazeltine (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2907-2914. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/44d2d054

Castroviejo, Elena, Hernández-Conde, Jose, Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Ponciano, Marta & Vicente, Agustin. (2023) Are Generics Defaults? A Study on the Interpretation of Generics and Universals in 3 Age-Groups of Spanish-Speaking IndividualsLanguage Learning and Development, 19:3, 275-302, DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2022.2071715 [first published online in July 2022]

Castroviejo, Elena, Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Ponciano, Marta & Vicente, Agustin. (2021). Generics as default? Comparing the acquisition of universals and generics in Spanish. In Beltrama, A., Schwarz, F. and Papafragou, A. Proceedings of ELM 1. LSA. 90-100.

de Leeuw, Esther, Stockall, Linnaea, Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, and Gorba Masip, Celia. (2019). Illusory vowels in Spanish-English late bilinguals: Evidence that accurate L2 perception is neither necessary nor sufficient for accurate L2 production. Second Language Research. DOI:10.1177/0267658319886623

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Katsos, Napoleon, and Stockall, Linnaea. (2019). Experimental evidence on genericity and universal quantification in Greek and English. In Chondrogianni, M., Courtenage, S., Horrocks, G., Arvaniti, A., and Tsimpli, I. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Greek Linguistics. London: University of Westminster, 171-182.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Katsos, Napoleon, and Stockall, Linnaea. (2019). Generalising about striking properties: do glippets love to play with fire? Frontiers in Psychology. 10:1971. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01971

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Stockall, Linnaea, and Katsos, Napoleon. (2019). Contextualising Generic and Universal Generalisations: Quantifier Domain Restriction and the Generic Overgeneralisation EffectJournal of Semantics, 36, 617-664, https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffz009

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, and Alexiadou, Artemis. Genericity in Greek: an experimental investigation. (2019). In Gattnar, A., Hörnig, R., Störzer, M. & Featherston, S. (Eds.) Proceedings of Linguistic Evidence 2018: Experimental Data Drives Linguistic Theory. Tübingen: University of Tübingen. https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/handle/10900/87132.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra. Genericity. Cummins, C. and Katsos, N. (Eds.), (2019). Handbook of experimental semantics and pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 155-177.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Stockall, Linnaea, and Katsos, Napoleon. (2017). A new look at the ‘Generic Overgeneralisation’ effectInquiry. DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2017.1285993.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Katsos, Napoleon and Stockall, Linnaea. (2017). Generic and Universal Generalisations: Contextualising the ‘Generic Overgeneralisation’ Effect. In Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, London: UK: Cognitive Science Society, pp.724-729.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, Katsos, Napoleon, and Stockall, Linnaea. (2015). Genericity is easy? Formal and experimental perspectives. In Hansen, N. and Borg, E. (Eds.), RATIO 28(4), Special Issue: Investigating Meaning: Experimental Approaches, 470-494.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra. Distributivity and genericity in Greek: the case of kathe with the definite article. (2014). In Lavidas, N., Alexiou, T. and Sougari, A.M. (Eds.), Major Trends in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Selected Papers from the 20th ISTAL, v. 1, London: Versita de Gruyter, 369-384.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, and Alexandropoulou, Stavroula. (2013). A corpus study of Greek bare singulars: implications for an analysis. In Pires de Oliveira, R. (Ed.), Revista da ABRALIN, 12, 1, Special issue: Weak Definiteness and Referentiality, 233-251.

Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Dimitra, and Stockall, Linnaea. (2013). Genericity, exceptions and domain restriction: experimental evidence from comparison with universals. In Chemla, E., Homer, V. and Winterstein, G. (Eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 17, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, 325-343.