CHristos Klairis

Christos Klairis was born in 1941 in Istanbul. A graduate of the Great School of the Nation, he studied Greek philology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and general linguistics at the Sorbonne, under the guidance of André Martinet, the founder of functional linguistics. He is currently a full professor of general linguistics at the Sorbonne, at the University of Rene Descartes-Paris V, where he has been teaching since 1978. He is also the director of the Laboratory of Linguistic Theory and Description (THEDEL) at the same university and vice president of the International Society of Functional Linguistics (SILF). He taught Greek and general linguistics in Chile (1970-1976). His research on the languages of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego led him in 1972 to establish the Center for Research of Indigenous Languages at the Catholic University of Valparaiso, which he directed until its closure following the coup. He continued his research on endangered languages from France, in collaboration with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and universities in Latin America. In 1987, he published the first complete description of the Amerindian language Kawésqar (El qawasqar, Linguistica fueguina, Teoria y descripcion, Valdivia, Estudios Filologicos). As director of THEDEL, he oversaw the series Trauaux du Seminaire de Linguistique Fonctionnelle (1992-2002). His numerous publications primarily address topics in theoretical linguistics, language description, and ethnolinguistics. His studies on the modern Greek language resulted in the publication of the "Grammar of Modern Greek, Structural-Functional - Communicative" (Ellinika Grammata, 2005), co-authored with Professor Georgios Babiniotis. His book "Topics in General Linguistics" (Nefeli, 1990) is also available in Greek. Among the most recent works released in the French bibliography under his direction are the Trauaux de linguistique fonctionnelle (L' Harmattan, 2005) and Typologie de la syntaxe connective (edited by C. Clairis, Cl. Chamoreau, D. Costaouec, and Fr. Guerin, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005).