Research

Constructive Linguistics. Since my Master’s thesis in interlinguistics, I was interested in what is planned in natural languages’ structure by its speech community policies and what is common, i.e., what underlies every natural language structure. After analysing planned languages (in particular Esperanto) as a special case, I looked for a strong model of formal syntax, which could help me to understand the common, inner structure of languages. I felt unsatisfied of the current models as such, so I turned to learn abstract formalisms to understand why. Then, I encountered constructive mathematics, as put by Alonzo Church and Alan Turing, where each entity is computational by definition. Hence, the project name constructive linguistics, which put together my interests in linguistics, philosophy and computer science. So I got a PhD in computer science, and my major Dissertation introduced the adpositional paradigm, a way to formalise natural language grammars in terms of constructive mathematics, using a Topos-theoretical approach — in the mathematical sense, in collaboration with Marco Benini; see Olivia Caramello’s unification project of mathematics for the importance of Topos Theory. This was obtained after a careful comparison of the formalisms of natural language grammars from the modern age of linguistics (i.e., Saussurean structuralism) until now. A direct result is the Constructive Conversation Analysis (CoCAL) applied in psychotherapeutic settings. Now I am further exploring the adpositional paradigm in a general way, putting the foundations of constructive linguistics, i.e., linguistic investigation using exclusively tools belonging to constructive mathematics.

Computing and Philosophy. Delving into philosophy of language issues, in particular the problem of reference in natural language grammars I broaden my research interest including history of philosophy, logics, mathematics, computation and the birth of computer science. In particular, I am interested in the history of ideas behind computer science, from its beginning until now. Some results were shown in conferences, papers, courses, and during the PhD. I feel that quite often philosophy of computing neglets the historical aspects, thus I proposed a different point of view about nowadays popular topics such as the impact of web 2.0 technologies – in particular social networks – and new technologies of writing (blogs, wikis, etc.), which is more respectful of the history of ideas behind computer science achievements. Furthermore, I was also called as a consultant in non-academic settings, e.g. business and enterprises, about these topics, applying Agile Methodologies if needed.