• Historical linguistics 

• Language change 

• Corpus linguistics 

• Usage-based linguistics 

• Old English 

• Middle English 

I’m a senior assistant (‘Oberassistent’) currently working at the English Department at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. You can read more about my project on Middle English causative verbs here. 

My research focuses on morphosyntactic change in English, particularly from Old to Late Modern English, combining cognitive-functional perspectives with quantitative approaches. Specifically, I'm interested in understanding how and why linguistic constructions emerge and are lost, what factors are involved in language change, and why change takes place in a particular language at a particular time. 

I received my PhD degree in Linguistics from the University of Manchester (UK) in 2021 under the supervision of Kersti Börjars and Tine Breban. My thesis focuses on the emergence and the functions of auxiliary do during the early Middle English period. 

https://lormoretti.com