Alejandro Cuza

Alejandro Cuza is a Professor at Purdue University, affiliated with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese under the College of Liberal Arts. He specializes in Spanish Linguistics, focusing on morphosyntax, semantics, and psycholinguistic processes in second language acquisition and heritage language development.

• University: Purdue University
• School: College of Liberal Arts
• Department: Spanish and Portuguese
• Academic Rank: Professor

Education:

• Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics, University of Toronto

Research Interests:
Cuza investigates psycholinguistic mechanisms in Spanish morphosyntax acquisition among bilingual children, adult L2 learners, and heritage speakers. Key areas include language transfer, input conditions, age of onset effects, and the interplay between syntax and semantics in bilingualism.

Scientific Contributions:
His recent work examines protracted development in heritage speakers, crosslinguistic influence in adverb distribution, and feature reassembly in grammatical gender. Publications span topics like copula use, clitic production, and aspectual interpretation across diverse bilingual contexts.

Students:
Elizabeth Barajas, a former advisee, is documented in his research collaborations.

Labs & Teams:
He leads the SLAR (Spanish Language Acquisition and Research) Lab at Purdue, focusing on empirical studies of bilingual development.