About me

I have a background in historical linguistics and experimental phonetics and phonology. In my PhD thesis, I studied the consonant retroflexion processes in the Italo-Romance languages from a phonetic and historical perspective. I am interested in the acoustic and articulatory correlates of retroflexion, affrication and nasal place assimilation in Italian and Italo-Romance dialects. Beside segmental analyses, I explore the micro-prosodic effects of inter-segmental timing at the VC or VCC level.
Since my MA thesis (completed 2001 and published 2004), I developed an interest in the acquisition of L2 Italian phonology and in native and non-native speech perception. My current research in that domain focuses on consonant gemination in L2 Italian.
Since 2009, I am involved in a research project on the psycho-computational processing of ortho-phonological words. The project explores the cognitive representation of phonological strings and phonotactic constraints regulating the speakers’ production and perception.The relations between phonotactic constraints and morphological structure of words is explored with particular reference to Germanic languages.

Most of my work is carried out in collaboration with people in Italy and abroad.