Maria Luisa Zubizarreta
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta is a professor of linguistics at the University of Southern California, where she has taught since 1988. Zubizarreta was born and raised in Asunción, Paraguay. She obtained her Maîtrise in General Linguistics from Paris 8 University in 1978, and her PhD in Linguistics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982.
Zubizarreta has conducted her research within the framework of generative linguistics. More precisely, she is interested in linguistic theory as a model of mental competence and performance. Her approach is comparative and considers issues ranging from the relation between the lexicon and syntax to the prosody and syntax of focus.
Zubizarreta has also conducted empirical research into issues dealing with second language acquisition, focusing on the mental grammar of the learners as they develop interlanguage. Her most recent work explores person-related phenomena from a semantic perspective in different languages, including the use of person features in Paraguayan Guaraní.
