Professional Preparation
University of  Chicago, Linguistics, Ph.D., 1966
Loyola University of Chicago, Latin & Philosophy, B.A., 1960

Appointments
1997-    : Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
1982-    : Professor, University of Chicago, Depts. of Linguistics and of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations.
1979-85: Chairman, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations
1973-82: Associate Professor, University of Chicago
1970-73: Assistant Professor, University of Chicago
1969-70: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Chicago
1967-69: Research Associate, University of Amsterdam (Holland)

Grants
1974-76 National Science Foundation, Oromo Dictionary (1974-75 spent in Ethiopia).
1987-89 National Science Foundation, comparative Cushitic-Omotic etymological file

Research/Teaching
My time for both has been severely limited for the past several years by my current administrative responsibilities as director of the Oriental Institute. Teaching has been limited to courses in Ethiopic (Geíez) and Hurrian, plus a reading course in computational linguistics. Research has been largely concentrated on problem of electronic publication of Ancient Near Eastern textual corpora, and the lexical and grammatical research tools correlated with these corpora, and with my on-going projects in historical (Afroasiatic) linguistics:

1. I have designed the interface and wrote application programs (Perl, for the most part) for a web-based reference archive of comparative-historical information on the Afroasiatic languages (more than 300 languages are referenced in the database). Prototype of site visible at: http://mithra-orinst.uchicago.edu/~gragg/aai/AAI.html.

2. Out of this work, I have designed interface and application programs for a web-based electronic edition of the trilingual (Old Persian, Elamite, Akkadian) royal inscriptions of the Achaemenid (Persian) empire from the royal center Persepolis. The text is correlated with plans, drawings and photographs (for the most part unpublished) of the site and its monuments made by the Oriental Institute archaeologists who excavated Persepolis in the 1930ís. Work was done in collaboration with Matthew Stolper, Charles Jones, and John Sanders. (http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/ARI/ARI.html). A continuation of this project is the publication of the Persepolis "Fortification Tablets", a large (10,000+ tablets), unpublished corpus of administrative documents in Elamite from the Achaemenid empire, excavated by the Oriental Institute in the 1930ís. A prototype site with the first one hundred tablets can be seen at: http://mithra-orinst.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/PER/ADM/PF.html.

3. I am working with the co-editors of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary to make an electronic edition of this reference tool. An initial trial site with seven dictionary articles can be seen at: http://mithra-orinst.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/CHD/CHD.html. When the details have been worked out, we plan to put the "P" volume of the dictionary on line in the current calendar year, and eventually move to production and disemination of the dictionary in this form as it is being produced.

Otherwise work in progress includes:

 "Lexical Cabals: Emergent Phonological and Semantic Structures in the Semitic Root"

"The Evidence for Proto-Cushitic: A Reexamination"

"Electronic Format for Reference Grammars using XML" -- this work is primarily aimed at integrating grammatical information into ongoing electronic publication projects: a) a corpus publication project (Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions); b) a comparative historical database project (the Afroasiatic Index). Will probably also result in an article for either a historical or a computational linguistics journal.

Books
The Dimensional Infixes of Sumerian Alter Orient und Altes Testament Sonderreihe 5 (Neukirchen, 1973).
Oromo Dictionary  (Michigan State Univ. Press, 1982).

Selected Articles
"Estimating Convergence and Conflict among Cognate Sets in a Cushitic Etymological Index," in M. Bechhaus-Gerst & F. Serzisko (eds.), Cushitic - Omotic: Papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic Linguistics (Hamburg, Helmut Buske Verlag, 1988), pp. 187-202.

"'Also in Cushitic': How to Account for the Complexity of Geez-Cushitic Lexical Interactions?" in Alan Kaye (ed.) Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau  Vol. 1 (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1991), pp. 570-576.

"Phonology, Comparative Method, and Etymological Databases", in R. Voigt (ed.) Papers in Cushitic and Omotic Linguistics (Berlin, 1996).

 "Etymology and Electronics: The Afroasiatic Index" Oriental Institute News and Notes (Spring, 1996), pp. 1-5.

"Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions from Persepolis in Electonic Form"  Oriental Institute News and Notes (Spring, 1998), pp. 1-5. (With Matthew Stolper).

"Subject, Object, Verb Word Order in Urartian: Prelude to Typology," Aula Orientalis 9 (1991), 105-112.

"íSouth Arabian/Axumiteí Dipinto", Ch. 10 in S. Sidebotham (ed.) Berenice 1995 (Research School CNWS, Leiden, 1996), pp. 209-211.

"Ge'ez", Ch. 13 in R. Hetzron (ed) The Semitic Languages (Routledge, 1997), pp. 242-260.

"Phonology of Ethiopic" & "Phonology of Old South Arabian", Chs. 11 & 12  in Alan Kaye (Ed.) Introduction to the Phonology of Oriental Languages (Eisenbraunís, 1997). Pp. 161-186.

"Early Ethiopic - Aksum", chapter in World's Ancient Languages, ed. R. Woodard (Cambridge University Press, in press)

"Cushitic Languages", chapter in survey of Afroasiatic Historical Grammar, ed. B. Kienast (Harrassowitz, forthcoming)
 

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