Acknowledgments

This choice has involved courage, determination, fear, and a good dose of stickability against all adversities and frustrations that experimental work might expectedly or unexpectedly entail. For this reason, my first thought goes to my family, which has persistently supported me so far and to which I am indebted for what I have become and whatever I will be in the future. I wish to thank Antonio, Rita, Valeria, Marco for all their support and understanding. I’m also grateful to Alessandro, from whom I learned the secrets of self-esteem, respect and love.

I wish to express my profound gratitude and sincere thanks to my research guide and valuable mentor, Prof. Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri (University of Roma Tre), for his constant encouragement and untiring help which have been source of motivation at all stages of my research project.

Special thanks also go to Valentina Bambini (IUSS Pavia, Italy) and Paolo Canal (IUSS Pavia, Italy) for their precious contribution to the realization of my core experimental work on presupposition processing conducted at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa).

Many thanks are also owed to Daria La Rocca (University of Roma Tre), Patrizio Campisi (University of Roma Tre) and Emanuele Maiorana (University of Roma Tre) for their extremely productive collaboration while carrying out the study on Topic-Focus processing in the Biometrics Laboratory of the Department of Applied Electronics (University of Roma Tre).

I also take this opportunity to show my appreciation to Prof. Petra Burkhardt Schumacher (Universität zu Köln) for the time spent discussing my research topic and experimental results during my three-month stay in Cologne, and to Filippo Domaneschi (University of Genoa) for his valuable and insightful remarks on this manuscript.

My acknowledgments also go to Carlo Eugeni for his help in the subject recruitment phase of the experimental project when I was in Pisa. I would not have gone so far without his support.

Last but not the least, many, many thanks to Prof. Lunella Mereu for making my doctoral experience something to be proud of, for never stopping believing in us, and for being always on our side in good and bad times of this long, intriguing journey.