Publications
Publications
Embedded Files
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
Lepic, Ryan. (tbd). Sign Languages. In X. Wen and C. Sinha (Eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
2025
Börstell, Carl and Ryan Lepic. (2025). Non-signers favor two-handed gestures when expressing inherently plural meanings. Linguistics Vanguard (ahead of print). 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)
Google Sites
Report abuse