Biosketch

Professor Emerita of Linguistics. Full Professor for Linguistics (1975 -2010 )and for Sociolinguistics (1982-1991),she has taught in several universities, both in Italy and abroad. President of the International Society for Historical Linguistics (1983-85), of the Società Italiana di Glottologia (1991-92), President and Vice-President  of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (1999-2000). Head of the Department of Linguistics 2002-2008. Organizator of sevel national and international conference on Historical Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition.

Member of the Academia Europaea

 
Main areas of research: 1) Historical Linguistics, history of Greek and Latin, Grammaticalization theory,Typological Linguistics;  2) Languages in contact, plurilingualism and minority languages; 3) Theory and practice of Second Language Acquisition. She has published widely in all these areas. She has edited a volume The limits of grammaticalization (with Paul Hopper, Amsterdam , Benjamins 1998),  a volume on the acquisition of Italian by immigrants (Verso l'italiano, 2003) and a volume on Typology and Second Language Acquisition, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. She has co-edited (with Caterina Mauri and Piera Molinelli) a volume on language change  (Synchrony and Diachrony: a dynamic interface, Amsterdam, Benjamins 2013).

Her current research focuses on the diachronic development of interclausal connectives,  on the evolution of passives and impersonals in Romance and new perspectives on grammaticalization theory, opened by Construction Grammar and pragmatic approaches to language use.

 


Education

1959 University degree in Comparative Philology, Faculty of Arts, University of Florence. Advising professor: Prof. Giacomo Devoto

1960-1962 Period of study abroad at Bayerische Julius-Maximilians-Universität in Würzburg, Germany (1960-61) and at Universität des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken (1961-62) with scholarships from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. Specialization in Indo-European linguistics with special focus on Sanskrit and Germanic languages

1970 Qualification for University teaching of Comparative Philology (venia legendi)

Teaching Positions

1962-1968 Professor of Latin and Greek Letters at Siotto-Pintor High School in Cagliari

1968-1975 Assistant Professor of Comparative Philology, Faculty of Arts, University of Cagliari (Sardinia)

1969-1972 Professor of Comparative Philology, University of Cagliari

1972-1976 Professor of Comparative History of Classical Languages, Faculty of Arts, Milan State University

1974-1976 Professor of Germanic Philology, Faculty of Arts, University of Pavia.

1975-1976 Professor of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Messina (Sicily)

1982-1991 Responsible for the teaching of Socio-linguistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Pavia

1976-1996 Professor of Comparative Philology, Degree Course in Foreign Languages, Faculty of Arts, University of Pavia

1996 to 2010  Professor of General Linguistics, Degree Course in Letters , Faculty of Arts, University of Pavia

2004 to 2010 Professor of Theory of Grammar, Master Degree in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Pavia


      

• Past Projects, co-funded by the MIUR (Ministry for Education, University and Research),  by the National Research Council (CNR) and by the local endowmenr (FAR):
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• Historical linguistics: the history of the Latin language and Greek language, the diachrony of Indo-European languages in the framework of grammaticalization theory. 

• Sociolinguistics and Contact Linguistics: plurilinguism and minority languages, with particular reference  to the German-speaking area of Gressoney  Valle d'Aosta (cf. the volume: Lingua dialetto e comportamento linguistico, 1979) and various articles). Theoretical and methodological reflections on code-switching, particularly between Italian and Italian dialects.

• Diachronic syntax: theories of linguistic change.

• Second language acquisition: Spontaneous acquisition of Italian in comparison to other European languages from socio-linguistic and psycholinguistic standpoints. The characteristics of Italian as L2 of immigrants and of foreigners of different linguistic backgrounds (cf the edited volumes Verso l'italiano, Roma 2003 and Typology and Second Language Acquisition, Berlin/New York 2003) and several articles).

• Current research focuses on semantic change in grammaticalization and on the evolution of passives and impersonals in Romance.
• Research on Grammaticalization processes: Diachronic sources of interclausal coordinating connectives, with special attention to Italian and Romance languages.
• Studies on the development of the motion verb venire as passive auxiliary : data from the history of Italian and typological perspectives.
• The study of Second language Acquisition is pursued investigating the role of formulaic language in acquisition in a Construction Grammar framework .