Andrea Moro (born July 24, 1962) is an Italian linguist and neuroscientist.
Moro is currently full professor of general linguistics at the Institute for Advanced Study IUSS Pavia, Italy. His main fields of research are syntax and neurolinguistics.
In the first field, he has made notable contributions to the theory of clause structure (in particular with respect to the theory of the copula discovering inverse copular constructions, to the notion of expletive proposing that an element like there and its equivalent across languages is a raised expletive predicate rather than an inserted expletive subject, and to the theory of syntactic movement (by proposing a weak version of the theory of antisymmetry, i.e. dynamic antisymmetry) according to which movement is the effect of a symmetry-breaking process in the computational system that underlies syntax.
As for the other field, he explored the neurological correlates of artificial languages which do not follow the principles of Universal Grammar providing evidence that Universal Grammar properties cannot be cultural, social or conventional artifacts: in fact, he and the team of people he worked with showed that recursive syntactic rules, that is rules based on recursion selectively activate a neurological network (including Broca's area) whereas non-recursive syntactic rules do not. He also explored the correlates between the representation of the world in the brain and the structure of syntax, specifically the relationship between sentential negation and the brain).
For a critical evaluation of the impact of these contribution in linguistics and neurolinguistics see respectively: Chomsky 1995, Den Dikken 2006, Everaert et al. 2006, Graffi 2000, Hale - Keyser 2003, Kayne 2011, Richards 2010 among others and Chomsky 2004, Kaan et al. 2002, Marcus 2003, Newmeyer 2005.