Nina Semushina

I am a graduate student in Linguistics at UCSD, and work with professor Rachel Mayberry in the Laboratory of Multimodal Language Development. My specialization is Sign Language Linguistics and I currently work on Russian Sign Language (RSL) and ASL. One line of my research is related to numeral systems and time expressions and in sign languages around the world. I did research on numeral incorporation (when a calendric term simultaneously combined with numeral) - a typologically frequent phenomenon in sign languages, which, being a moderately productive and highly constrained, can give unique insights about morpho-phonology of sign languages and therefore must be studied crosslinguistically. It also a great material to study the acquisition of numeral morphology and historical change in numeral systems.  

My dissertation project is about the effects of delayed first language acquisition on the development of numerical cognition and linguistic number use. We work with late first language learners of ASL (individuals who were not exposed to any language in their childhood) and compare them to the Deaf native signers of ASL. This work can help us to understand the relationship between language, symbolic number and perception of quantitaty. 

I am interested in the relationship between language and number, as well as numeral systems of the world and especially in sign languages.