[Reposted from S&P Editors Blog]

We were curious to see how S&P is doing as far as the impact of published articles on the field is concerned. Below we have compiled a list of all articles published in the four main semantics journals (Linguistics & Philosophy, Natural Language Semantics, Journal of Semantics, Semantics & Pragmatics) since 2008 (the year of S&P’s first published article) that have received 10 citations or more according to Google Scholar. There are not yet any articles published in 2011 on that list. So, let’s focus on the cohort of articles published between 2008 and 2010. The four journals combined published 141 main research articles in that time frame. 54 of those (= 38%) have received 10 or more citations. S&P published fewer articles than the other three journals (11 in fact: 1 in 2008, 3 in 2009, 7 in 2010), since we’re still ramping up the quantity of publications. But S&P already has an outsized share of the top impact articles: we have 5 articles in the Top 20, and an overall rate of 64% of our articles have already received 10 or more citations.

By all accounts then, S&P’s first three years were a resounding success quality-wise. Now, we’ll be working on increasing our quantitive share of the semantics market while not decreasing our quality share. You can help: submit your best work to S&P. You will receive top-notch and fast peer-reviewing and editorial feedback and fast time-to-print. Plus, your work will be openly accessible to anyone with access to an internet connection, rather than being locked behind prohibitive subscription barriers.

[There are other things to notice, such as the domination in the upper range of articles by NLS, distancing the two older journals JoS and, especially, L&P.]

1. [54 citations] Kehler, Kertz, Rohde et al. - JoS 2008. Coherence and coreference revisited
2. [53 citations] Hackl - NLS 2009. On the grammar and processing of proportional quantifiers: most versus more than half
3. [48 citations] Chemla - NLS 2009. Presuppositions of quantified sentences: experimental data
4. [42 citations] Schlenker - S&P 2009. Local contexts
5. [37 citations] Rothstein - JoS 2010. Counting and the mass/count distinction
6. [32 citations] Wilhelm - NLS 2008. Bare nouns and number in Dëne Sųłiné
7. [31 citations] Barker, Shan - S&P 2008. Donkey anaphora is in-scope binding
8. [28 citations] Geurts, Pouscoulous - S&P 2009. Embedded implicatures
9. [28 citations] Breheny - JoS 2008. A new look at the semantics and pragmatics of numerically quantified noun phrases
10. [27 citations] von Fintel, Gillies - NLS 2010. Must… stay… strong!
11. [27 citations] Rullmann, Matthewson et al. - NLS 2008. Modals as distributive indefinites
12. [27 citations] Magri - NLS 2009. A theory of individual-level predicates based on blind mandatory scalar implicatures
13. [24 citations] Elbourne - L&P 2008. Demonstratives as individual concepts
14. [22 citations] Chemla - S&P 2009. Universal implicatures and free choice effects: Experimental data
15. [21 citations] Matushansky - L&P 2008. On the linguistic complexity of proper names
16. [21 citations] Farkas, Bruce - JoS 2010. On reacting to assertions and polar questions
17. [21 citations] Alonso-Ovalle, Menendez-Benito - NLS 2010. Modal indefinites
18. [21 citations] Bale - L&P 2008. A universal scale of comparison
19. [20 citations] Nouwen - S&P 2010. Two kinds of modified numerals
20. [20 citations] Singh - L&P 2008. On the interpretation of disjunction: Asymmetric, incremental, and eager for inconsistency
21. [19 citations] Kissine - NLS 2008. Why will is not a modal
22. [18 citations] Gualmini, Hulsey, Hacquard et al. - NLS 2008. The Question–Answer Requirement for scope assignment
23. [18 citations] Harris et al. - L&P 2009. Perspective-shifting with appositives and expressives
24. [17 citations] Abusch - JoS 2010. Presupposition triggering from alternatives
25. [17 citations] Ippolito - JoS 2008. On the meaning of only
26. [17 citations] Hacquard - L&P 2009. On the interaction of aspect and modal auxiliaries
27. [17 citations] Morzycki - NLS 2009. Degree modification of gradable nouns: size adjectives and adnominal degree morphemes
28. [17 citations] Lascarides et al. - JoS 2009. Agreement, disputes and commitments in dialogue
29. [16 citations] Bale et al. - JoS 2009. The interpretation of functional heads: Using comparatives to explore the mass/count distinction
30. [16 citations] Gillies - S&P 2010. Iffiness
31. [16 citations] Brasoveanu - L&P 2008. Donkey pluralities: plural information states versus non-atomic individuals
32. [16 citations] Moltmann - L&P 2009. Degree structure as trope structure: a trope-based analysis of positive and comparative adjectives
33. [15 citations] Villalta - L&P 2008. Mood and gradability: an investigation of the subjunctive mood in Spanish
34. [15 citations] Syrett, Kennedy et al. - JoS 2010. Meaning and context in children’s understanding of gradable adjectives
35. [15 citations] Lascarides et al. - JoS 2009. A formal semantic analysis of gesture
36. [14 citations] Arregui - L&P 2009. On similarity in counterfactuals
37. [14 citations] Chemla - JoS 2008. An epistemic step for anti-presuppositions
38. [13 citations] Abbott - L&P 2008. Presuppositions and common ground
39. [13 citations] Hacquard - NLS 2010. On the event relativity of modal auxiliaries
40. [13 citations] Chaves - L&P 2008. Linearization-based word-part ellipsis
41. [13 citations] Moltmann - NLS 2008. Intensional verbs and their intentional objects
42. [12 citations] Koenig, Mauner, Bienvenue et al. - JoS 2008. What with? The anatomy of a (proto)-role
43. [12 citations] Nicolas - L&P 2008. Mass nouns and plural logic
44. [12 citations] Dekker - L&P 2008. A multi-dimensional treatment of quantification in extraordinary English
45. [11 citations] Nouwen - NLS 2008. Upper-bounded no more: the exhaustive interpretation of non-strict comparison
46. [11 citations] Sharvit - L&P 2008. The puzzle of free indirect discourse
47. [11 citations] Gualmini et al. - JoS 2009. Solving learnability problems in the acquisition of semantics
48. [11 citations] Brasoveanu - JoS 2010. Decomposing modal quantification
49. [11 citations] Davis - JoS 2009. Decisions, dynamics and the Japanese particle yo
50. [11 citations] Lin - NLS 2009. Chinese comparatives and their implicational parameters
51. [10 citations] Martí - NLS 2008. The semantics of plural indefinite noun phrases in Spanish and Portuguese
52. [10 citations] Beck - S&P 2010. Quantifiers in than-clauses
53. [10 citations] Zweig - L&P 2009. Number-neutral bare plurals and the multiplicity implicature
54. [10 citations] Francez - L&P 2009. Existentials, predication, and modification

[NB: data from February 5, 2012]

Total papers published by the four journals 2008–2010: 141
54 have received 10 citations or more (54/141 = 38%)

Share of the Top 54:

JoS: 15 papers (of 41 published 2008–2010) = 15/41 = 37%
L&P: 17 papers (of 55 published 2008–2010) = 17/55 = 31%
NLS: 15 papers (of 34 published 2008–2010) = 15/34 = 44%
S&P: 7 papers (of 11 published 2008–2010) = 7/11 = 64%

The Elsevier boycott I mentioned last week has gathered momentum. Here is some coverage:

• http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120130/13030217589/will-academics-boycott-elsevier-be-tipping-point-open-access-another-embarrassing-flop.shtml
• http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/elsevier-publishing-boycott-gathers-steam-among-academics/35216
• http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/01/researchers-boycott-publisher-will-they-embrace-instant-publishing.ars
• http://www.economist.com/node/21545974
• http://boingboing.net/2012/01/31/scientists-boycott-elsevier-ov.html
• http://chronicle.com/article/As-Journal-Boycott-Grows/130600/
• http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/thousands-of-scientists-vow-to-b.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/02/academics-boycott-publisher-elsevier

Update (Friday 2/3/2012): The S&P site is fully functional again: http://semprag.org/. Let us know if you encounter any glitches. Please note that published articles were accessible even through the maintenance period (we try to maintain a close to perfect accessibility score).

Previously (Thursday 2/2/2012): Today, we are upgrading the S&P backend to a new version of the Open Journal Systems software that is running the journal’s operations. During this period, we have switched to a minimal static homepage at http://semprag.org, from which all published articles are still accessible. We hope to be fully back by the end of the day.

For submission inquiries and any other business, please contact the editors via email.

Following a blog post by fields medalist Tim Gowers, there is now a website for signing an academic boycott declaration against the worst of the big anti-science publishers, Elsevier. I have signed.

The MIT Library News blog reports on my personal policy declaration.

Benjamin Russell recently finished his dissertation at Brown. I was part of his committee (chaired by Polly Jacobson, other members: Larry Horn, Laura Kertz) and learned a lot from working with Ben. He has now posted his thesis to the archive:

• Russell, Benjamin. 2012. Probabilistic reasoning and the computation of scalar implicatures. Providence, RI: Brown University PhD dissertation. http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/WY1YTRhM/russell2012probabilistic.pdf.

Anybody interested in the formalization and understanding of pragmatic mechanisms should read this thesis.

Speaking of open access, I hope that most of you have heard about the US Research Works Act, which is a bill before Congress that would roll back the open access policies of some federal grant agencies. I urge you all to do what you can to raise awareness of this. Here is some essential reading:

• An opinion piece in the Guardian: “Academic publishers have become the enemies of science: The US Research Works Act would allow publishers to line their pockets by locking publicly funded research behind paywalls”.
• An editorial by Michael Eisen in the NYT: “Research Bought, Then Paid For”.
• Related posts on Eisen’s blog:
  • “Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research”,
  • “Plagiarist or Puppet? US Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s reprehensible defense of Elsevier’s Research Works Act”.
• Some notes on the act from Peter Suber, especially on growing dissent from academic publishers that are members of the Association of American Publishers, which has endorsed the bill.
• Peter Suber’s postings on Google+ are a convenient way to follow the issue.

My position on this is exactly the one very forcefully put by Harvard Provost Alan M. Garber:

“We endorse the view that every federal agency funding non-classified research should require free online access to the full-text, peer-reviewed results of that research as soon as possible after its publication. There are three powerful reasons to take such a step. First, taxpayers deserve access to the results of taxpayer-funded research. It is their right. Second, public access maximizes the visibility and usefulness of this research, which in turn maximizes the return on the public’s enormous investment in that research. Third, public access accelerates research and all the benefits that depend on research, from public health to economic development, manufacturing, and jobs …”

[From: http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/stp-rfi-response-january-2012]

Update (2012-01-18): Good news. Two of the big guns, Nature and Science have come out in opposition to the Research Works Act and in support of the NIH Open Access Policy. It’s very clear that Elsevier and their cronies are isolated in the scientific community, but unfortunately they have the ears of many ill-informed congresspeople.

MIT, of course, has an Open Access Policy, which I am proud to have played a small role in establishing. Having that policy has guided my personal decisions about venues for publishing and reviewing, but I have noticed that I have not always been very principled and consistent in my decisions. So, it is time for my own personal policy. Here it is.

Kai’s Open Access Policy

1. Journals: I will only publish in, review for, and serve on editorial boards for journals that allow authors to deposit at least the final manuscript version (“postprint”) in an open access repository (such as MIT’s Dspace or the Semantics Archive), without any embargo (such as having to wait for 24 months before making the OA version available).
2. Book chapters: I will personally only contribute book chapters, if the publisher allows me to deposit at least the final manuscript version in an open access repository, without any embargo. (I will consider reviewing books or book chapters that are not OA-friendly, because books are a different business from research journals, although I wish that there was more movement towards OA books.)
3. Books: I will only publish books myself that have a significant open access component, such as making at least the final manuscript freely available, or even the final published version while charging for print versions of course.

For current reference, here are the policies of leading publishers of relevance to our field(s), culled from the MIT Libraries list of publisher policies:

• Elsevier: With 2011 revision of author agreement, requires authors to opt out.
• MIT Press: In full cooperation. Allows posting of final published version.
• Springer: MIT and Springer have established an agreement that extends flexible reuse rights to MIT authors of papers published in Springer journals. Among other rights, the final submitted manuscripts of MIT-authored Springer papers can be posted openly in MIT’s open access repository DSpace@MIT. Authors should sign the standard Springer agreement and do not need to submit an author’s addendum.
• Wiley-Blackwell: Has indicated it will be requiring authors to opt out.

Obviously, this list doesn’t include some important publishers, such as Oxford University Press. So, before making any particular decisions, I will consult with whoever is asking me to publish or review for them.

I am migrating this site back from commercial blog hosting at wordpress.com to a self-hosted solution, reversing my goodbye to DIY. I am however not running a CMS like Wordpress on the server anymore, because that has opened me up to spam attacks in the past, which is why I moved away from self-hosting last year. So, now, I’m writing my posts on my computer, “baking” the site through Jekyll/Octopress, and then uploading a static website to the server.

I like the fact that all my posts are right here (in plain text, markdown format) and do not reside in some server database. I’m having fun geeking out around this move, learning a bit more Ruby along the way. This is certainly not something I would recommend unless you’re really into this kind of thing. Hosting your blog at wordpress.com is a very good option if you don’t want to worry about what happens on the back end.

One thing that I didn’t like and that got me to move away from there is this: the annual renewal of the “No-Ads” option (for $30 or so) came up, but then I noticed (using the Ghostery chrome extension) that wordpress.com tracks all readers with two commercial systems: the ScoreCard Research Beacon and Quantcast, in addition to their own stats system. One might have hoped that by purchasing the no-ads option, one’s readers would enjoy not just an ad-free blog but also one that doesn’t track their behavior.

Anyway, the site now is definitely a bit no frills, which I kind of like. There’s no comment system, for example (some Jekyll/Octopress sites use the Disqus system, but turns out they also do a massive amount of user tracking). If you have feedback on anything, email me or tweet about it or write on your own blog. If it makes sense, I will update my post accordingly. In the sidebar are just a few things: links to other sites I’m involve with, my latest tweets (in addition to a page that has all my tweets ever, fwiw), and my latest pinboard bookmarks. The RSS feeds should work as before once things are settled down after the move.

I have restored most of the old posts all the way back to 2003 when I started this blog. There are all kinds of formatting errors and of course lots of linkrot, but maybe I’ll get around to fixing all that over time.

I have a new draft paper:

The best we can (expect to) get? Challenges to the classic semantics for deontic modals.
2012. Paper to be presented in a session on Deontic Modals at the Central APA, February 17, 2012.

A somewhat programmatic response to recent challenges to the classic semantics for deontic modals (as brought into linguistics by Kratzer), addressing work by Cariani, Cariani & Kaufmann & Kaufmann, Charlow, Kolodny & MacFarlane, Lassiter, Silk.

As always, comments would be very welcome. You know how to reach me.