journal publication (Antipassives)

[Daniel Everett]

Johanna,

I completely agree. I was only referring to the odd case where a senior scholar might not be able to find the appropriate 'home' for a ms.

But Linguistic Discovery, as Martin H noted, and the Ling Typ journal are of course excellent outlets if their page limits are more flexible.

Dan


On 29 Mar 2010, at 11:57, Johanna Nichols wrote:

> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more
> important function of journal publication than boosting careers is.  Peer
> review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I
> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often.
> 
> Johanna Nichols
> 
> 
> dlevere at ILSTU.EDU wrote:
>> I agree with most of what Martin says. However, I don't think that if
>> senior scholars self-publish this puts junior scholars at a
>> disadvantage. In fact, I would think the opposite. It frees up journal
>> space for them. I think that selective journals are crucial for the
>> careers of junior scholars. And if senior scholars need the 'credit'
>> in some sort of evaluative process, e.g. the UK's RAE or some such,
>> then publication in a selective journal is always preferred. But for
>> well-established scholars who want to make interesting work available
>> but aren't worried about impressing review committees, I think
>> self-publishing is a useful option.
>> 
>> I certainly do not understand what the hesitation would be to use and
>> cite such materials. (In fact, you can publish any monograph on
>> Amazon.com and charge for downloads if you'd prefer. I don't recall
>> seeing a linguistic monograph published in this way, but other
>> disciplines, most notably philosophy, seem to do this from time to
>> time.)
>> 
>> Dan
>> 
>> 
>> Quoting Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at EVA.MPG.DE>:
>> 
>>> Since increasingly, even papers from "print journals" are printed out
>>> rather than retrieved from a library in paper form, the difference is
>>> now mainly between journals with page number restrictions and journals
>>> without page number restrictions. The latter are obviously preferable
>>> (in typology, we have one so far:
>>> http://linguistic-discovery.dartmouth.edu/).
>>> 
>>> It seems to me that the future of linguistics lies in abandoning
>>> monograph publication, and shifting to journal-only publication.
>>> Increasingly, as linguists compete for resources with other
>>> disciplines, journal publication is seen as counting more. (In fact, it
>>> may make sense to go as far as relabeling entire book series as
>>> journals, to help evaluators and funding agencies see linguistics as
>>> what it is, a respectable science.)
>>> 
>>> Martin
>>> 
>>> P.S. I wouldn't recommend the "self-publishing" strategy suggested by
>>> Dan Everett as an option. As he notes, this is not available to junior
>>> scholars, so if it became acceptable, it would put them at a
>>> disadvantage. I think we should not cite unpublished work that isn't
>>> evidently intended for regular publication.
>>> 
>>> dlevere at ILSTU.EDU wrote:
>>>> Dear Wolfgang,
>>>> 
>>>> It seems to me that work that doesn't quite fit an established
>>>> print journal or monograph series ought either to be submitted to
>>>> an electronic journal or simply posted on one's webpage with a
>>>> notice to the relevant list, at least for senior scholars such as
>>>> yourself.
>>>> 
>>>> Most of the people who would read and benefit from your research
>>>> report are readers of this list and Funknet, and some on
>>>> LinguistList who don't read these two lists. In fact, by making
>>>> your work available to your colleagues by this announcement and
>>>> your webpage, you have probably already ensured that your paper
>>>> will be read by more people than most print outlets.
>>>> 
>>>> I look forward to reading the work from your website.
>>>> 
>>>> Others might have different opinions about publication, of course.
>>>> But that is my view.
>>>> 
>>>> Dan
>>>> 
>>>> Quoting Wolfgang Schulze <W.Schulze at LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE>:
>>>> 
>>>>> Dear friends and colleagues
>>>>> please allow me making a perhaps somewhat unusual post. But maybe you
>>>>> can help me or give me some advise. I have produced an admittedly
>>>>> lengthy paper on the *grammaticalization of antipassives* in terms of
>>>>> split aspects systems, dealing mainly with Sumerian, Kartvelian, and
>>>>> Proto-Indo-European, but including data from other languages, too. You
>>>>> can download the first draft (attention: not yet proof-read by an
>>>>> native speaker of English!) from
>>>>> http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/antipass.pdf . My problem is that
>>>>> I really don't know what to do with this paper. It is too long for
>>>>> submission to a journal (79 pages), and too short for producing a
>>>>> (slender) monography. Any suggestions (if ever you can imagine that
>>>>> the
>>>>> contents are of relevance for our community)? In addition, I would be
>>>>> happy to receive critics and other comments all of which would
>>>>> undoubtedly help to improve the quality of the analyses.
>>>>> Many thanks in advance and best wishes,
>>>>> Wolfgang
>>>>> --
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> 
>>>>> *Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze *
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
>>> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6
>>> D-04103 Leipzig      Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980
>>> 1616
>> 
>> 
>> 
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