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School of English - AUTh

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School of English personnel

School of English personnel


Ioanna (Nina) Topintzi

Professor - Department of Theoretical & Applied Linguistics

308Γ | +30 2310 997050 | topintzi@enl.auth.gr | personal page
Office hours: WE 13:30-15:30(online, only by appointment click here) | TH 14:00-15:00(on-site or online; both by appointment click here)

Nina (Ioanna) Topintzi is Professor in Phonology at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She holds a BA in Greek Philology from the University of Crete, and an MA and a PhD in Linguistics from University College London. A revised version of her doctoral thesis was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010 with the title Onsets: Suprasegmental and Prosodic Behaviour. She has taught in Greece and abroad (UCL, AUTH, University of Patras, TEI of Patras, University of the Aegean). In 2011 she was a visiting scholar at MIT and then a Humboldt Fellow at the University of Leipzig (2011-2012). During 2012-2014, she held an Assistant Professorship at the University of Leipzig. In spring semester 2023 she conducted research at CSU Fresno and the University of California Santa Barbara as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar. She teaches in the areas of phonology, phonetics and typology and conducts research in phonology (syllable structure, stress, geminates, metrics, segmental phonology), as well as the phonetics-phonology and the phonology-morphology interfaces. She has published in international journals (Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, Phonology, Linguistic Inquiry, Glossa, Journal of Greek Linguistics), edited volumes (e.g. The Blackwell Companion to Phonology) and conference proceedings. She has recently authored a textbook on Language Typology (2021) and co-edited (with M. Lekakou) an Introduction to Linguistics (2022), both in Greek. In 2023, she published an open access introductory textbook on Phonetics and Phonology, as part of the Project Kallipos. She participates or has participated in various research projects in Greece and abroad (Brazil—University of Campinas, Germany—University of Leipzig, Germany—University of Munich, Spain—University of Valencia).


Selected Publications (visit my webpage for further details)
  • Topintzi, N. 2023. Phonetics and Phonology: an introduction with special focus on English and Greek. Kallipos, Open Academic Editions. https://repository.kallipos.gr/handle/11419/10062.
  • Topintzi, N. & E. Zimmermann. 2023. Reconciling "Heavy" and "Long": the Typology of Lexical Geminates. Linguistic Inquiry. DOI:
  • Λεκάκου, Μ. & Ν. Τοπιντζή. 2022. Εισαγωγή στη Γλωσσολογία: Θεμελιώδεις έννοιες και βασικοί κλάδοι με έμφαση στην ελληνική γλώσσα. Αθήνα: Gutenberg.
  • Topintzi, N. 2022. A new phonological analysis of geminates in Cypriot Greek (and beyond). Journal of Greek Linguistics 22(1), 36-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15699846-02201002.
  • Kikiopoulou, A. & N. Topintzi. 2022. Regularities and oddities in Greek Binomials. In Supplemental Proceedings of the 2021 Annual Meeting on Phonology, P. Jurgec et al. (eds.). Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3765/amp.v9i0.5164.
  • Τοπιντζή, Ν. 2021. Τυπολογία Γλωσσών. Βασικές αρχές, θεωρητικές προσεγγίσεις και φαινόμενα. ISBN 978-960-524-605-1. Ηράκλειο: Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης.
  • Gratsouni, D. & N. Topintzi. 2020. “On the syllabification of ON (obstruent-nasal) clusters in Greek”. Στο Μελέτες για την Ελληνική Γλώσσα 40: 105-113. Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών: ΑΠΘ.
  • Topintzi, N., K. Avdelidis & Th. Valkanou. 2019. “Quantifying Greek rhyme”. In Selected Papers on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from ISTAL 23. N. Topintzi et al. (eds.), Prothiki: Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki, pp. 429-47.
  • White, J., R. Kager, T. Linzen, G. Markopoulos, A. Martin, A. Nevins, S.  Peperkamp, K. Polgárdi, N. Topintzi & R. van de Vijver. 2018. “Preference for locality is affected by the prefix/suffix asymmetry: evidence from artificial language learning”. In Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society [NELS 48], Vol. III, pp. 207-220.
  • Topintzi, N. & A. Nevins. 2017. “Moraic Onsets in Arrernte”. Phonology 34(3): 615-650. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675717000306.
  • Topintzi, N. & S. Davis. 2017. “On the Weight of Edge Geminates”. In Phonetics and Phonology of Geminate Consonants, H. Kubozono (ed.), pp. 260- 282. Oxford: Oxford Uni. Press.
  • Topintzi, N. 2016. “Iquito: The Prosodic Colon and Challenges to OT Stress Accounts”. In Dimensions of Phonological Stress, J. Heinz et al. (eds.), pp. 123-167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Baltazani, M., E. Kainada, A. Revithiadou & N. Topintzi. 2016. “Vocoid-driven processes: Palatalization and glide hardening in Greek and its dialects”. Glossa 1(1), 23. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.108.
  • Topintzi, N. & S. Versace. 2015. “A Linguistic Analysis of the Modern Greek Dekapentasyllavo meter”. Journal of Greek Linguistics 15(2): 235-269. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15699846-01502004.
  • Topintzi, N. & M. Baltazani. 2012. “The acoustics of high-vowel loss in a Northern Greek dialect and typological implications”. In Consonant clusters and structural complexity, P. Hoole et al. (eds.), Interface Explorations series, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 369-398.
  • Topintzi, N. 2010. Onsets: Suprasegmental and Prosodic Behaviour. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Nο. 125. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521493352. April 2010 (http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521493352)
  • Topintzi, N. 2008. “On the existence of moraic onset geminates”. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 26(1): 147-184. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-008-9034-4.
  • Topintzi, N. 2006. “A (not so) paradoxical instance of compensatory lengthening: Samothraki Greek and theoretical implications”. Journal of Greek Linguistics 7: 71–119. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jgl.7.05top.

TEACHING (ACADEMIC YEAR 2023-2024)

SemesterCodeTitleGroupDayFromToRoom
Winter G-LSUD3 ThLing335 Phonology Wednesday 16:00 18:30 107
Winter G-LSUD3 ThLing 396 Language Typology: Synchronic and Diachronic Views Thursday 16:00 18:30 107
Spring G-LSUD2 ThLing230 Phonetics - Phonology Wednesday 16:00 18:30 107
Spring G-LSUD2 ThLing496 Phonology-Morphology Interface Thursday 16:00 18:30 112 π.κ.