From 8 to 11 October 2026, Piazza del Sole in Bellinzona will host the seventh edition of Sconfinare Festival, this year dedicated to the boundary between language and silence. Among the featured speakers will be Andrea Moro, Professor of General Linguistics at the Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia.
Andrea Moro
Saturday, 10 October 2026
Piazza del Sole, Bellinzona
What happens before a sentence is spoken? What are the biological limits of human language? Why are some languages possible while others are not? And what are the differences between human grammars and those generated by artificial intelligence?
These are some of the questions at the heart of the event featuring Andrea Moro, Professor of General Linguistics at the Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia, as part of Sconfinare Festival 2026, taking place from 8 to 11 October in Piazza del Sole, Bellinzona.
The seventh edition of the Festival explores the subtle boundary that both connects and separates language and silence. The theme invites us to consider language not only as a means through which we describe the world and build relationships, but also as a deep structure linked to the architecture of the brain, its limits and its possibilities.
A leading scholar of the relationship between language and the brain, Moro will take the audience on a journey to the frontiers of human language, from his research on so-called “impossible languages” to more recent reflections on the relationship between language, thought and reality. At the intersection of linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy and imagination, the discussion will also address one of today’s most pressing questions: how human language compares with the workings of artificial intelligence systems.
The event will be moderated by Giovanni Pellegri, neurobiologist and science communicator. The talk is part of Oltre il muro: cinque ore, cinque sguardi, una piazza (Beyond the Wall: Five Hours, Five Perspectives, One Square).
Andrea Moro
A member of the Accademia dei Lincei, linguist, neurolinguist and novelist, Andrea Moro is Professor of General Linguistics at the Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. His research focuses on the structure of human languages and the relationship between syntax and the brain. He has been a visiting scientist at MIT and Harvard University.
His most recent publications include I segreti delle parole, co-authored with Noam Chomsky (La nave di Teseo, 2022), Parlo dunque sono. Istantanee sul linguaggio (Adelphi, 2024), and Lucretius and the Bat with Blue Eyes. Explaining the Universe with the Alphabet (The MIT Press, 2025).
Moro is also a novelist. His novel Il segreto di Pietramala (La nave di Teseo, 2018) won the Premio Flaiano. His second novel, Cinquantun giorni (La nave di Teseo, 2024), draws inspiration from the Iliad, bringing its themes and echoes into the contemporary world through a journey that also includes Lugano.
Sconfinare Festival 2026
8–11 October 2026
Piazza del Sole, Bellinzona