Michele Loporcaro

Michele Loporcaro is a Full Professor of Romance Linguistics (Italian Historical Linguistics) at the University of Zurich since 2000. He previously held academic positions at the University of Zurich, University of Calabria, and University of Padua.

• Romanische Seminar, University of Zurich
• Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

Research interests include:

• Comparative Romance Linguistics
• Italian Dialectology (phonology, morphology, syntax)
• Historical Linguistics and Language Contact
• Phonological, Morphological and Syntactic Theory
• Linguistic Historiography

Notable publications span topics like grammatical gender systems, vowel length evolution, and morphosyntactic variation in Italo-Romance dialects. His 2018 book Gender from Latin to Romance was a finalist for the AAP Prose Awards.

Scientific recognition:

• Premio Borgia (1989)
• Premio Antonio Feltrinelli (2012)
• Fellow of Academia Europaea (2011–)
• Visiting Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2013-14)

Research leadership includes directing the Zurich Database of Agreement in Italo-Romance (SNSF-funded), co-editing major linguistic journals, and organizing international conferences on Romance linguistics. He has supervised 25+ PhD students and led fieldwork in Sardinia, Sicily, and other Romance-speaking regions.