Ryan Lepic

I'm a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego. My co-advisors are Carol Padden and Farrell Ackerman, and I'm interested primarily in morphology and sign language:

• How do languages create new words?
• What word-formation processes are used by signed and spoken languages? How are they similar and how do they differ?

More generally, I'm drawn to topics pertaining to language change and typology:

• lexical patterns in "new" (creole, sign, artificial, etc.) languages
• the interaction of morphology and syntax as languages change over time
• the balance between synthesis and periphrasis for grammatical marking
• treatments of the relationship between meaning and form (CxG, WP, Iconicity)

Recent Updates

last updated 27 Feb 2013

Jan 2013 - Back from presenting a poster, Revisiting the morphology of blends: Initialized signs in American Sign Language, at the 2013 LSA meeting.

Dec 2012 - Accepted to present two posters, Motivation in two-handed signs: A cross-linguistic investigation of word forms and The phonology and morphology of initialized signs in American Sign Language, at TISLR 11. See you in London!

Dec 2012 - Advanced to candidacy. Let the fun begin!

July 2012 - Back in San Diego after spending the Spring and Summer at the UHaifa Sign Language Research Laboratory!