Pragmatics of authors-name order

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:20 AM -0500 2/24/04, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>Even an alphabetical listing is ambiguous: we can't be sure that the authors
>are following the alphabet rule or one of the other rules in a situation in
>which it JUST HAPPENS TO BE THE CASE that the most important author
>(or the one
>with the grant, etc.) has an early-alphabet last name.
>
Sometimes a jointly authored paper will include a footnote at the end
of line giving the authors' names which reads "The names of the
authors are listed in alphabetical order" or something along those
lines.  To which my disingenuous response is "Duh", but of course the
implicature is "...and for no other reason."

larry