Sarah Rossi
I'm a 3rd year PhD Candidate in Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics at
IUSS Pavia (Italy) under the supervision of
Prof. Cristiano Chesi and Prof. Adriana Belletti.
My research mainly revolves around the syntax of imperative clauses (but see below for more details!). I work within the framework of generative grammar, combining formal theory with first language
acquisition data, corpus studies, and computational methods.
I am a member of the NeTS Lab
(Laboratory for Neurolinguistics, Computational Linguistics and Theoretical Syntax),
directed by Prof. Cristiano Chesi.
Beyond my research, I enjoy running, yoga, crochet, crafting handmade jewellery 💍, reading fiction and poetry, and occasionally writing poems of my own 📖✍️.
Get in touch: sarah.rossi@iusspavia.it
Research Interests
Theoretical syntax
Morphosyntax of imperatives, exploring the hypothesis that they are radically reduced structures ● Analysis of expletive vs. standard negation.
Language Acquisition
Development of L1 grammar investigated through corpus studies and computational approaches ● Acquisition in Children vs. Learning in Machines.
Interfaces with Semantics and Pragmatics
Interpretation of imperatives ● Non-canonical uses of imperative clauses ● Expressive language in expletive negation clauses.
Selected Publications
The syntax of Expletive Negation in English: the case of 'not-ACC-ing constructions'.
Sarah Rossi, Cristiano Chesi, Matteo Greco
English Language and Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, 1–23 • 2026
Acquisition in Babies and Machines: Comparing the Learning Trajectories of LMs in Terms of Syntactic Structures (ATTracTSS Test Set).
Sarah Rossi, Guido Formichi, Sofia Neri, Tommaso Sgrizzi, Asya Zanollo, Veronica Bressan, Cristiano Chesi
Proceedings of the 11th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2025) • 2025
Italian/Romance imperatives as radically reduced structures: a corpus CHILDES study.
Sarah Rossi
Rivista di Grammatica Generativa, 45(5), pp. 1–39 • 2023
News
PhD in Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics completed 🎓
July 2026
I have successfully defended my PhD dissertation, titled "Imperatives as Radically Reduced Clauses: Morphosyntax, Acquisition, and the Syntax-Semantics Interface", at the University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia. I am deeply grateful to my supervisors, Cristiano Chesi and Adriana Belletti, and to everyone who supported me throughout this journey. The dissertation is available here: https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/010185
L+/ Summer/Winter School Organizing Committee (2026)
June 2026
I am in the Organizing Committee of the Third Truly Global /L+/ Summer/Winter School on Language Acquisition (2026 edition). The school is a free-of-charge summer school designed to be accessible for everyone and to be followed globally, in line with its truly global mission. More info here: https://www.lplusschool.org/
PhD Thesis on Imperative Clauses - Submitted 📖
29 May
I've submitted my PhD thesis and am currently waiting for reviews. Grateful for this wonderful PhD journey!