My research profile is situated at the interface between theoretical generative linguistics and Romance linguistics (especially focused on the Italo-Romance subfamily of languages spoken in Italy). Most of my publications contribute to the field of theoretical linguistics as applied to the Romance languages. In the last six years, I have extended my domain of investigation to the study of spoken discourse phenomena at the interface between syntax and semantics (e.g., nominal and clausal left-peripheral phenomena, presentatives, discourse deixis, etc.).

Recently, my interests grew further into the study of phenomena expressed in the visual-gestural modality (e.g., gestures). Such phenomena have been almost entirely overlooked in theoretical linguistics. I began to study gestures from a purely formal perspective for the first time, drawing empirically from the languages of Southern Italy. My main project, Gestural Grammar: Investigating Gesture in Southern Italy (GestuGram; PI: Colasanti), received funding from the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute (2020-23), the Higher Education Authority of Ireland (2021-23), the Provost’s Office of Trinity College Dublin (Provost’s PhD Project Award; 2021-25), and Enterprise Ireland (2023-25).