Irina Lobjanidze

Direction: Linguistics
Position:Full Professor

Since 2018, Irina Lobzhanidze has held the position of Professor in Linguistics at Ilia State University, where she teaches undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students in digital humanities, Georgian studies, and applied linguistics. Her 20 years of research experience includes digital humanities and natural language processing, with a particular focus on the study of universal dependencies in Kartvelian languages, neural modeling, the creation of Georgian and Megrelian language corpora, and the compilation of an online dictionary of idiomatic expressions.

Scientific interests / research interests
  • Digital Humanities
  • Applied Linguistics
  • Corpus Linguistics
  • Natural Language Processing
  • E-Lexicography
  • Kartvelian languages

Monographs

  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2024). Parakletike. Ilia State University.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2022). Finite-state computational morphology: An analyzer and generator for Georgian. Springer Cham.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2022). Typicon of the Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross near Jerusalem. Ilia State University.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2021). Morphosyntactic annotation and principles of finite-state morphological analysis of the Georgian language. Ilia State University.

Featured publications

  • Mititelu, V., Giouli, V., Korvel, G., Liebeskind, C., Lobzhanidze, I., Makhachashvili, R., Markantonatou, S., Markovic, A., & Stoyanova, I. (2025). Survey on lexical resources focused on multiword expressions for the purposes of NLP. In Proceedings of the 21st Workshop on Multiword Expressions (MWE 2025) (pp. 41–57). Association for Computational Linguistics.
  • Lobzhanidze, I., Magradze, E., Berikashvili, S., Gozalishvili, A., & Jalaghonia, T. (2025). Syntactic annotation of Georgian within the UD scheme. In L. Hogeweg, R. Jalali, L. Schwarz, & I. Sedlár (Eds.), Language, Logic, and Computation: TbiLLC 2023 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 11456, pp. 187–208). Springer.
  • Gersamia, R., & Lobzhanidze, I. (2025). Encoding the progressive aspect in Megrelian verbs. Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences (Moambe), 19(1).
  • Lobzhanidze, I., Gersamia, R., & Tsulaia, N. (2024). Compiling a bilingual Megrelian–English online dictionary: Preserving endangered Kartvelian languages. In K. Š. Despot, A. Ostroški Anić, & I. Brač (Eds.), Proceedings of the XXI EURALEX International Congress (pp. 647–661). Cavtat, Croatia.
  • Lobzhanidze, I., Magradze, E., Berikashvili, S., Gozalishvili, A., & Jalaghonia, T. (2024). Building a Universal Dependencies treebank for Georgian. In D. Dakota, S. Kübler, H. Zinsmeister, & S. Jablotschkin (Eds.), ACL Anthology (pp. 40–45).
  • Gersamia, R., & Lobzhanidze, I. (2023). Preserving endangered Kartvelian languages: Lexicographic insights for Megrelian dictionary. In Proceedings of Lexicography in the XXI Century. https://lexicography21.iliauni.edu.ge/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/10_Irina-Lobzhanidze-Rusudan-Gersamia-2.pdf
  • Lobzhanidze, I., Magradze, T., Berikashvili, S., Gozalishvili, A., & Jalaghonia, T. (2023). Universal syntactic annotation guidelines for Georgian: Report. Kadmos, (15), 204–210.
  • Gersamia, R., Lobzhanidze, I., Skhulukhia, T., & Tsulaia, N. (2023). Documentation of Megrelian language: Report of linguistic expedition to Samegrelo (2022–2023). Kadmos, (15), 123–135.
  • Gersamia, R., & Lobzhanidze, I. (2023). Documentation and annotation of Megrelian texts in FLeX. Language and Culture, (29), 46–50.

An extensive list of publications

  • Berikashvili, S., & Lobzhanidze, I. (2022). Merged functionality of absolutive and nominative in Georgian. In Issues in Kartvelian Studies (pp. 121–149). Vernon Publishing.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2021). MULTEXT-East morphosyntactic specifications: Georgian specifications. In T. Erjavec (Ed.), MULTEXT-East: Multilingual text tools and corpora for Central and Eastern European languages (Version 6). http://nl.ijs.si/ME/V6/msd/html/msd-ka.html
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2021). Digital edition of the Typicon of the Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross near Jerusalem. Le Muséon, 325–352.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2020). Digitalization of Georgian medieval manuscripts: Typicon of the Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross near Jerusalem. Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, 97–102. Georgian Academy Press.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2020). Translation technologies, translation, and principles of linguistic annotation. In Proceedings of the VIth International Conference Dedicated to the International Day of the Translator (pp. 53–65). Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Press.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2020). IIIF technology and the principles of digital publication of medieval Georgian manuscripts. In Proceedings of the International Conference “Archival Studies and Source Studies – Trends and Challenges”.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2019). Computational model of the modern Georgian language and search patterns for an online dictionary of idioms. In A. Silva, S. Staton, P. Sutton, & C. Umbach (Eds.), Language, Logic, and Computation: TbiLLC 2018 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 11456, pp. 187–208). Springer.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2018). For the annotation of titlo diacritic. Études interdisciplinaires en Sciences humaines (EISH), 5, 38–52. Ilia State University.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2018). Translation-oriented terminography (in compliance with ISO standards). Terminological Issues, III, 132–145.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2017). Realization of verbal models in the corpus of modern Georgian language. In TbiLLC (pp. 114–129).
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2016). Online dictionary of idioms. In Proceedings of the XVII EURALEX International Congress (pp. 710–717). Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Press.
  • Doborjginidze, N., & Lobzhanidze, I. (2016). Corpus of the Georgian language. In Proceedings of the XVII EURALEX International Congress (pp. 328–335). Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Press.
  • Doborjginidze, N., & Lobzhanidze, I. (2015). Parallel corpus of the Georgian chronicles. Kadmos, 402–414.
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2015). Finite-state morphological approach to Georgian verbal paradigm. In TICCSAM (pp. 79–85).
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2012). To the problem of compilation of the Modern Georgian–Modern Greek dictionary of idioms (in Greek). In ICGL (pp. 899–904).
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2010). A cross-cultural view of idioms in Modern Greek, Russian, and Georgian (in Greek). In Proceedings of the 5th Athens Postgraduate Conference of the Department of Philology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (pp. 190–196).
  • Lobzhanidze, I. (2009). To the equivalent translation of idiomatic expressions (in Russian). In Languages and Cultures in the New Europe: Contacts and Identity (pp. 161–168). Dmytro Burago Publishing House.

Current Courses

  • Georgian Lexicology, BA Course
  • Introduction to Linguistics, BA Course
  • Introduction to Computational Linguistics, BA in Georgian and English
  • Scientific Translation, MA Course
  • Language and Technologies, MA Course

Course Catalog

  • Field Linguistics and Language Documentation, Bachelor’s Course
  • Old Georgian Language I, Bachelor’s Course
  • Old Georgian Language II, Bachelor’s Course
  • Seminar in Linguistics, Master’s Course
  • Seminar in Corpus Linguistics, Master’s Course
  • Seminar in Computational Linguistics, Master’s Course
  • Modern Syntactic Theory and Generative Grammar, Master’s Course
  • Methods of Linguistic Research, Master’s Course

Personal website http://irinalobzhanidze.com/

Research Projects:

The book of hours, publishing grant financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science foundation (SP-23-685), 2023-2024

Georgian morphosyntactic computational analysis and tools for the annotation of universal syntactic dependencies (FR-22-20496), financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2023-2025

CA21167 - Universality, diversity and idiosyncrasy in language technology (UniDive), 2022-2026 https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA21167/

Annotated Corpus of Megrelian Language with Sketch Grammar and Online Dictionary (FR-21-993-3), financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2021-2025

Typicon of the Georgian Monastery of the Holly Cross, financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2021-2022

Wardrops’ Collection Online, Joint Research Programme of the University of Oxford and SRNSFG in Georgian Studies, 2019-2020

Digital Humanities (Digital Epigraphy, Computational Linguistics, Digital Prosopography), Young Scholar, financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2016-2020

On-line Dictionary of Idioms, Principal Investigator, financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2014-2017

Corpus Annotation and Analysis Software for Modern Georgian Language, Linguistic Coordinator, financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, 2012-2014

Parallel Corpus of the Georgian Chronicles, Linguistic Coordinator, financed by the Ilia State University, 2011-2012

Parallel Corpus of the Knight in the Panther’s Skin, Linguistic Coordinator, financed by the Ilia State University, 2011-2012

Georgian-Modern Greek Dictionary of Idioms, Principal Investigator, financed by the Foundation for Georgian Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences, 2009-2010