Publications
Publications
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Right below this text, I have listed two "representative" publications. Below those, you'll find a list of all my work, by year. Please do email me if you need access to a copy of any of my publications listed below!
Lepic, Ryan. (2025). Idioms and other constructions in American Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 36(2), 183-225. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2023-0026 -- Open Access!
This paper proposes a definition of idiom that can be used to identify idioms across languages. Idioms are affective constructions, they are phrasal units, and they are conventional expressions for members of a language community. This definition is used to identify idioms in ASL such as [keep.quiet hard] ‘just have to accept it’. This approach to idioms motivates an approach in which all aspects of linguistic knowledge can be represented as meaning-form pairs that vary in their complexity and schematicity.
Lepic, Ryan. (2021). From letters to families: Initialized signs in American Sign Language. In H. Boas and S. Höder (Eds.), Constructions in Contact 2: Language Change, Multilingual Practices, and Additional Language Acquisition (pp. 268-305). Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.30.09lep -- Download PDF!
This study analyzes a database of ASL initialized signs, which are formed with handshapes corresponding to English letters. Initialized signs are shown to forge 'kind-of' and 'whole-part' relationships with existing ASL signs. Initialized signs are analyzed in terms of constructional schemas, capturing properties that are shared among ASL signs and explaining productive instances of initialization (and de-initialization).
accepted
Waller, James and Ryan Lepic. (tbd). Exploring counterfactual constructions in ASL. Studies in Language.
accepted
Lepic, Ryan. (tbd). Sign Languages. In X. Wen and C. Sinha (Eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
in press
Hochgesang, Julie A., Ryan Lepic, Joseph C. Hill, Pamela Decker-Wright, and Miako Villanueva. (2026). Linguistics of American Sign Language: An Introduction (6th Edition). Gallaudet University Press.
2025
Börstell, Carl and Ryan Lepic. (2025). Non-signers favor two-handed gestures when expressing inherently plural meanings. Linguistics Vanguard 11(1), 545–557. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2024-0181
[open access link] (first online Oct-2025)
Lepic, Ryan. (2025). Idioms and other constructions in American Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 36(2), 183–225. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2023-0026
2024
Pleyer, Michael, Ryan Lepic, and Stefan Hartmann. (2024). Compositionality in different modalities: A view from usage-based linguistics. International Journal of Primatology 45, 670–702. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-022-00330-x
[open access link] (published Jun-2024; first online Sept-2022)
2023
Lepic, Ryan. (2023). Identifying ASL compounds: A functionalist approach. Sign Language Studies 23(4), 461-499. https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2023.a905536
Wilkinson, Erin, Ryan Lepic, and Lynn Hou. (2023). Usage-based grammar: Multi-word expressions in American Sign Language. In T. Janzen and B. Shaffer (Eds.), Signed Language and Gesture Research in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 357-388). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110703788-014
[download a copy] -- for personal use only
Hochgesang, Julie A., Ryan Lepic, and Emily Shaw. (2023). W(h)ither the ASL corpus?: Considering trends in signed corpus development. In E. Wehrmeyer (Ed.), Advances in Sign Language Corpus Linguistics (pp. 287-308). Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.108.11hoc
2022
Hou, Lynn, Ryan Lepic, and Erin Wilkinson. (2022). Managing sign language video data collected from the internet. In A. Berez-Kroeker, B. McDonnell, E. Koller, and L. Collister (Eds.), The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management (pp. 471-480). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12200.003.0045
2021
Lepic, Ryan. (2021). From letters to families: Initialized signs in American Sign Language. In H. Boas and S. Höder (Eds.), Constructions in Contact 2: Language Change, Multilingual Practices, and Additional Language Acquisition (pp. 268-305). Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.30.09lep
[download a copy] -- for personal use only
2020
Hou, Lynn, Ryan Lepic, and Erin Wilkinson. (2020). Working with ASL internet data. Sign Language Studies 21(1), 32-67. http://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2020.0028
Börstell, Carl and Ryan Lepic. (2020). Spatial metaphors in antonym pairs across sign languages. Sign Language and Linguistics 23(1-2), 112-141. http://doi.org/10.1075/sll.00046.bor
Lepic, Ryan. (2020). Review of Shaw (2019): Gesture in multiparty interaction. Sign Language and Linguistics 23(1-2), 272-279. http://doi.org/10.1075/sll.00052.lep
2019
Lepic, Ryan. (2019). A usage-based alternative to "lexicalization" in sign language linguistics. Glossa 4(1), 23. http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.840
2018
Lepic, Ryan and Corrine Occhino. (2018). A Construction Morphology approach to sign language analysis. In G. Booij (Ed.), The Construction of Words: Advances in Construction Morphology (pp. 141–172). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74394-3_6
[download a copy] -- for personal use only
Lepic, Ryan. (2018). Review of Constructing Families of Constructions: Analytical perspectives and theoretical challenges, edited by F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, A. Luzondo Oyón, and P. Pérez Sobrino. LINGUIST List 29.3293. https://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-3293.html
2017
Lepic, Ryan and Carol Padden. (2017). A-morphous iconicity. In C. Bowern, L. Horn, and R. Zanuttini (Eds.), On Looking into Words (and Beyond): Structures, Relations, Analyses (pp. 489–516). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.495463
Hwang, So-One, Nozomi Tomita, Hope Morgan, Rabia Ergin, Deniz Ilkbasaran, Sharon Seegers, Ryan Lepic, and Carol Padden. (2017). Of the hands and of the body: Patterned iconicity for semantic categories. Language and Cognition 9(4), 573–602. https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2016.28
[open access link] (published Dec-2017; first online Nov-2016)
Meir, Irit, Mark Aronoff, Carl Börstell, So-One Hwang, Deniz Ilkbasaran, Itamar Kastner, Ryan Lepic, Adi Lifshitz Ben Basat, Carol Padden, and Wendy Sandler. (2017). The effect of being human and the basis of grammatical word order: Insights from novel communication systems and young sign languages. Cognition 158, 189–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.10.011
(published Jan-2017; first online Nov-2016)
2016
Börstell, Carl, Ryan Lepic, and Gal Belsitzman. (2016). Articulatory plurality is a property of lexical plurals in sign language. Lingvisticæ Investigationes 39(2), 391–407. https://doi.org/10.1075/li.39.2.10bor
Lepic, Ryan, Carl Börstell, Gal Belsitzman, and Wendy Sandler. (2016). Taking meaning in hand: Iconic motivations in two-handed signs. Sign Language and Linguistics 19(1), 37–81. https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.19.1.02lep
Lepic, Ryan. (2016). Lexical blends and lexical patterns in English and in American Sign Language. Quo Vadis Morphology?: Online Proceedings of the Tenth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting, 98–111. ISSN: 1826–7491.
Namboodiripad, Savithry, Dan Lenzen, Ryan Lepic, and Tessa Verhoef. (2016). Measuring conventionalization in the manual modality. Journal of Language Evolution 1(2), 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzw005
Lepic, Ryan. (2016). The great ASL compound hoax. Proceedings of the Eleventh High Desert Linguistics Society Conference, 227–250. ISSN: 2470–9611.
Lepic, Ryan. (2016). Motivation in morphology: Lexical patterns in ASL and English (University of California, San Diego, 2015) [Dissertation abstract]. Sign Language and Linguistics 19(2), 285–291. https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.19.2.08lep
Dissertation (2015)
Lepic, Ryan. (2015). Motivation in morphology: Lexical patterns in ASL and English (Doctoral dissertation). Available through ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Publishing and University of California eScholarship.
2015
Padden, Carol, So-One Hwang, Ryan Lepic, and Sharon Seegers. (2015). Tools for language: Patterned iconicity in sign language nouns and verbs. Topics in Cognitive Science 7(1), 81–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12121
[open access link] (published Jan-2015; first online Nov-2014)
Lepic, Ryan. (2015). English particle verbs: Evidence from acceptability judgments. San Diego Linguistics Papers 5, 18–29. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8ws431kj
2014
Börstell, Carl and Ryan Lepic. (2014). Commentary on Kita, van Gijn & van der Hulst (1998). Sign Language and Linguistics 17(2), 241–250. https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.17.2.06bor
2013
Padden, Carol, Irit Meir, So-One Hwang, Ryan Lepic, Sharon Seegers and Tory Sampson. (2013). Patterned iconicity in sign language lexicons. Gesture 13(3), 287–308. https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.13.3.03pad (original 2013 article) and https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.70.03pad (2015 reprint)
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