Paolo Lorusso
Paolo Lorusso

Paolo Lorusso

Associate Professor of Linguistics
Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society (DILL)
University of Udine, Italy
Publications ORCID Academia ResearchGate Email

Linguist affiliated with the University of Udine, working on syntax, argument structure, and the syntax–semantics interface, with a focus on psycholinguistics, language contact, bilingualism and multilingualism, minority languages, and morphosyntactic microvariation.

I hold two doctorates: one in Comparative Linguistics, Literature and Culture from the University of Florence (2018), with a dissertation on patterns of agreement supervised by Maria Rita Manzini, and one in Cognitive Science and Language from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2014), on the acquisition of argument structure, supervised by Luigi Rizzi and Jaume Mateu. In 2024 I obtained the Italian National Academic Qualification as Full Professor.

Alongside my theoretical work I collaborate with the NEtS Lab at IUSS Pavia and with laboratories for neurolinguistics and ERP research, and I coordinate teacher training on Italian Sign Language (LIS). I am also a literary translator from English into Italian.

What I work on

Research

My research brings together formal generative theory and experimental evidence. I am interested in how the fine structure of syntax shows up both in the grammar of closely related varieties and in the way speakers acquire and process sentences in real time.

Syntax and Romance microvariation

Aspectual periphrases, subject clitics, complementation and the left periphery in Southern Italian and other Romance varieties — with particular attention to Apulian aspectual constructions and the syntax of agreement.

Acquisition and psycholinguistics

The acquisition of verbs and argument structure in child Italian, agreement processing, relative-clause parsing and garden-path effects, studied through behavioural and eye-tracking methods.

Neurolinguistics

ERP studies of person, gender and number features, and of the processing of interrogative and copular constructions.

Sign language linguistics

The recognition and description of Italian Sign Language (LIS), and its place in schools and universities.

Generative syntaxSyntax–semantics interfaceRomance microvariation AktionsartLanguage acquisitionPsycholinguistics Neurolinguistics / ERPSentence processingSign language (LIS) Biolinguistics

Books, articles & chapters

Publications

Selected books, journal articles, book chapters and conference proceedings. For the complete and up-to-date list, see my ORCID profile.

Monograph
  1. Lorusso, P. (2017). Early Predicates: The Acquisition of Verbs at the Syntax–Semantics Interface. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Edited volumes
  1. Tagarelli De Monte, M. & Lorusso, P. (eds.) (2025). LIS e sordità a scuola e nelle università italiane. La prospettiva linguistica, educativa e civica. Udine: Forum.
  2. Mazzaggio, G. & Lorusso, P. (eds.) (2023). Proceedings of the International Summer School of Bilingualism and Multilingualism (ISSBM2022). Nova Gorica: University of Nova Gorica Press.
  3. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (eds.) (2020). Linguistic Variation: Structure and Interpretation. Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Journal articles
2026
  1. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (2026). A Unified Morphosyntactic Analysis of Reduplication as Inclusion. Languages 11, 38.
2025
  1. Lorusso, P. (2025). Agreement features in the nominal domain as classifiers: theoretical and experimental perspectives. Frontiers in Language Sciences 4:1662944.
  2. Lorusso, P. & Badan, L. (2025). On the interpretation of inflected subject clitics. Linguistic Variation 26(1), 61–75.
2024
  1. Lorusso, P. (2024). The Aspectual Distribution of Gerunds in Apulian Varieties. Lingue antiche e moderne 13, 271–312.
  2. Lorusso, P. & Badan, L. (2024). A cross-linguistic comparison of clausal embedding with causatives. Isogloss 10(4)/3, 1–32.
2023
  1. Grimaldi, M., De Vincenzi, M., Lorusso, P., Di Russo, F., Di Matteo, R., Rizzi, L. & Guasti, M. T. (2023). The Processing of Which-Interrogative Sentences: A Behavioral and ERP Study. Journal of Neurolinguistics 68, 101154.
2022
  1. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (2022). Derivational Relators in Italian. Languages 7(2), 130.
  2. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (2022). On the interpretation of proper temporal adverbs in Italian: the role of P and D. Isogloss.
  3. Lorusso, P., Oniga, R. & Re, A. (2022). Le origini latine dei verbi sintagmatici romanzi: osservazioni sull’uso dell’avverbio foras. L’Analisi Linguistica e Letteraria 32(3).
2019–2021
  1. Badan, L. & Lorusso, P. (2021). Subject clitics in nominal copular sentences: some insight from a North-Eastern variety of Italian. Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali.
  2. Greco, M., Lorusso, P., Chesi, C. & Moro, A. (2020). Asymmetries in nominal copular sentences: psycholinguistic evidence in favor of the raising analysis. Lingua 245, 102926.
  3. Lorusso, P. & Moro, A. (2020). The propredicative clitic in Italo-Romance: a micro-parametric variation approach. Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali 6, 97–124.
  4. Bucci, J., Lorusso, P., Grimaldi, M. & Schwartz, J.-L. (2019). Assessing the representation of phonological rules by a production study of non-words in Coratino. Phonetica, 1–24.
2014–2018
  1. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (2018). On the morpho-syntax of existential sentences in Romance-based Creoles. Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali 4, 47–72.
  2. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (2018). On the syntax of Pantiscu aspectual subject clitics. UCD Working Papers on Italian, 33–44.
  3. Lorusso, P. & Franco, L. (2017). Patterns of syntactic agreement with embedded NPs. Lingua 195, 39–56.
  4. Lorusso, P. (2017). Lexical Parametrization and Early Subjects in L1 Italian. International Journal of Linguistics 9, 146–163.
  5. Lorusso, P. (2015). Auxiliaries and Verb Classes in Child Italian: a syntactic analysis of the development of Aspect. Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali 1, 61–88.
  6. Lorusso, P. (2014). The Acquisition of Aspect in Italian. International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology (ASJU), 195–211.
Book chapters & conference proceedings
  1. Lorusso, P. (2025). I clitici soggetto nel friulano di Gorizia: aspetti sintattici, morfologici e discorsivi. In A. Variano & E. Maso (eds.), Lingua e identità a Gorizia tra passato e presente. Udine: Forum.
  2. Lorusso, P. & Fusco, F. (2025). La diffusione e il riconoscimento delle lingue dei segni: contesto e prospettive di studio. In M. Tagarelli De Monte & P. Lorusso (eds.), LIS e sordità a scuola e nelle università italiane. Udine: Forum.
  3. Mazzaggio, G. & Lorusso, P. (2023). Assessing metalinguistic awareness in multilingual classes. In Proceedings of the International Summer School of Bilingualism and Multilingualism (ISSBM2022). Nova Gorica: University of Nova Gorica Press.
  4. Manzini, M. R. & Lorusso, P. (2022). A bisentential syntax for a/bare finite complements in South Italian varieties: motion verbs and the progressive. In Pseudo-Coordination and Multiple Agreement Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  5. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (2020). Aspectual datives (and instrumentals). In Dative Structures in Romance and Beyond, 175–194. Berlin: Language Science Press.
  6. Lorusso, P. (2020). Lexical Parametrization and early subjects in L1 Italian. In L. Franco & P. Lorusso (eds.), Linguistic Variation: Structure and Interpretation, 401–422. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  7. Villata, S. & Lorusso, P. (2020). When initial thematic-role attribution lingers: evidence for digging-in effects in Italian relative clauses. In Typical and Impaired Processing in Morphosyntax, 57–74. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  8. Lorusso, P., Greco, M., Chesi, C. & Moro, A. (2019). Asymmetries in Extraction From Nominal Copular Sentences: a Challenging Case Study for NLP Tools. In Proceedings of the Sixth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2019).
  9. Franco, L. & Lorusso, P. (2019). The expression of proper locations and beyond: the motion-to and state-in Italian spatial prepositions. In Proceedings of NELS 49, 279–290. Amherst, MA: GLSA.
  10. Lorusso, P. (2019). A person split analysis of the progressive forms in some Southern Italian varieties. In Italian Dialectology at the Interfaces, 203–236. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  11. Lorusso, P. (2019). A person split analysis of the progressive forms in Barese. In Agreement, Case and Locality in the Nominal and Verbal Domains, 157–185. Berlin: Language Science Press.
  12. Lorusso, P. (2018). On gender and number: a psycholinguistic review. In Structuring Variation in Romance Linguistics and Beyond. In honour of Leonardo M. Savoia, 97–109. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  13. Manzini, M. R., Lorusso, P. & Savoia, L. M. (2017). a/bare finite complements in Southern Italian varieties: monoclausal or bi-clausal syntax? Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali 3, 11–59.
  14. Lorusso, P. (2017). Auxiliaries and Verb Classes: the complexity of predicates in the acquisition of the auxiliaries in L1 Italian. In Syntactic Complexity from a Language Acquisition Perspective, 105–141. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  15. Lorusso, P. (2007). The Acquisition of Aspect in L1 Italian. In Proceedings of GALANA 2, 253–264. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
  16. Lorusso, P. (2006). The l-syntax of Verbs in the acquisition of L1 Italian. In Language Acquisition and Development: Proceedings of GALA 2005, 362–369. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  17. Lorusso, P., Caprin, C. & Guasti, M. T. (2005). Overt subject distribution in early Italian children. In BUCLD 29 Online Proceedings Supplement. Boston University.

In the classroom

Teaching

I teach general and educational linguistics and psycholinguistics, and I coordinate teacher training on Italian Sign Language (LIS). A selection of courses:

Full record

Curriculum Vitae

Complete CV (PDF)
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Get in touch

Contact

Email

paolo.lorusso@uniud.it

Office

Palazzo Antonini, 3rd floor, room L2-04b
Via Petracco 8, 33100 Udine, Italy

Department

DILL — Department of Languages and Literatures,
Communication, Education and Society
University of Udine

Profiles

ORCID · Academia · ResearchGate