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Valentina Colasanti - Assistant Professor in Linguistics

Valentina Colasanti

Assistant Professor in Linguistics

I am a theoretical linguist. My expertise is in comparative and theoretical Romance linguistics, with particular emphasis on the diachronic and synchronic morphosyntax of Italo-Romance varieties. My research program is concerned with Romance variation and how it challenges and refines the generative theory of language.

Principal Research Interests

  • Comparative Romance syntax - My research focuses on the variation across Romance languages, with a particular emphasis on the morphosyntax of the varieties spoken in Italy (e.g. Neapolitan, Sicilian, etc.). I seek to integrate methods from both traditional Romance philology and modern syntactic theory, bringing them to bear on hand-collected data from closely related Romance varieties.
  • Interface between syntax and pragmatics - I am particularly interested in the intersection between syntax and pragmatics, so much of my work focuses on nominal and clausal left-peripheral discourse phenomena such as matrix/embedded complementation, presentative particles, and discourse deixis.
  • The pragmatico-syntactic contribution of gestures in southern Italo-Romance - Recently, I have focused on the pragmatico-syntactic contribution of gestures in southern Italo-Romance.

Current Projects

Recent Publications