Historical Syntax goes Gold!

As of today (1st July), the Historical Syntax section of Language is now an independent journal!

The new Journal of Historical Syntax is fully Gold Open Access, with no charge to either authors or readers (sometimes called “platinum” or “diamond” OA). Alongside full-length peer-reviewed articles and squibs, the new journal will also host book reviews. It’s hosted by KIM at the University of Konstanz.

Make sure you follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest articles!

Caitlin Light has stepped down as editor, and the board would like to thank her for her hard work in managing submissions and raising the journal’s profile, as well as wishing her all the best for the future. George Walkden (AKA me) will carry on as editor-in-chief. Lauren Fonteyn (University of Manchester) and Marieke Meelen (University of Cambridge) are stepping up as editors, and Moreno Mitrović and Christina Sevdali have joined the advisory board.

The existing section of Language has closed its doors to new submissions, but there are still a number of papers in the pipeline, so keep an eye out there too! Once the one-year embargo has passed, all papers from Language will be republished on the new site, with the authors’ permission. All the old content from the journal’s 2011-2013 incarnation has been republished there as well. We’d like to thank the LSA, and in particular Greg Carlson and Andries Coetzee, for all their help and support over the years.

Our mission stays the same: to publish theoretically-informed and philologically rigorous papers in diachronic and historical syntax, with no bias as to framework. If you have any questions, or are thinking of submitting a paper, contact George, Lauren or Marieke or pester us on Twitter or Facebook and we’ll get right back to you!

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Journal of Historical Syntax: interim report

Note: this post dates from April 2013, before the Journal of Historical Syntax became the Historical Syntax section of Language. It was first posted on my personal blog.

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My little Journal of Historical Syntax has been in existence for a year and a half now. The Executive Committee of the LSA has requested some facts and figures on the eLanguage journals, and I thought that readers might be interested to see these numbers as well. Enjoy!

Since its inception in summer 2011, the Journal of Historical Syntax has received 13 submissions: 1 in 2011, 9 in 2012, and 3 so far in 2013.

Of those 13 submissions:

3 were rejected.
4 were advised to revise and resubmit (of which 1 was subsequently accepted).
4 were accepted with changes (plus the 1 mentioned above).
2 are currently under review.

36 individuals have been involved in reviewing. The average time between receipt of the manuscript and date of the decision (not counting papers that were not sent out for review) is 97 days. 2 peer-reviewed papers have so far been published (1 in 2012, 1 in 2013). For these two, the times between receipt of the manuscript and publication were 275 and 187 days respectively. The articles have received 158 and 138 views respectively, and their abstracts have received 454 and 257 views respectively.

2 book reviews have also been published (1 in 2012, 1 in 2013), and a third is in the works. The two reviews have received 200 and 106 views respectively, and their abstracts have received 420 and 184 views respectively.

Many thanks to all our reviewers, authors and readers!