This style sheet results from the accumulated wisdom of those people who have participated in the edition of Language over the years.   Its purpose is to guide prospective authors in the preparation of a manuscript that makes the entire editorial process as simple as possible.  Manuscripts that depart from the style sheet will pass more slowly through the editorial process.  In egregious cases, manuscripts will be returned to the author for resubmission.

LSA style sheet as published in 1995:
 
 

1.  THE MANUSCRIPT

a. Submit four printed or photocopied copies of all submissions.  Retain one copy, since manuscripts will not be returned.   Electronically prepared manuscripts should be accompanied by a diskette labeled with the author's name and the word-processing program and operating system used.

b.  Use paper of standard size, either 8 1/2 x 11 or A4.

c.  Type or print all copy (including notes, references, and tables) on one side of the paper, fully double spaced throughout the manuscript.

d.  Use quadruple space between sections.

e.  Use type of one size throughout the manuscript (including title, headings, and notes), either 10 or 12 points (12 or 10 cpi), in a simple roman face except where indicated below.

f.  Leave margins of 1 inch (2.54 cm) on all four sides of the paper.

g.  Do not use line-end hyphens or right justified margins.

h.   Place each piece of special matter on a separate page.  Special matter includes all tables, figures, art work (not example sentences, rules, or formulas), trees, and other diagrams.  Key each piece of special matter to its proper place in the body of the manuscript with a notation of the following sort on a separate line in the manuscript:
 
 

Centered below each piece of special matter, put its number, followed by a brief legend on a separate line.

i.  Use the following order and numbering of pages:

(1)  page 0: title and subtitle; authors' names and affiliations; complete mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone numbers of the first author, for articles only, the names and addresses of suggested reviewers.

(2)  page 1:  title and subtitle only

(3)  page 2:  abstract of about 100 words (for articles only) with asterisked acknowledgment footnote if there is one.

(4)  body of the work

(5)  references, beginning on a new page

(6)  notes, beginning on a new page

(7) all special matter

k.  The LSA urges contributors to Language to be sensitive to the social implications of language choice and to seek wording free of discriminatory overtones.  In particular, contributors are asked to follow the "LSA Guidelines for Non-sexist Usage", published in the December (1995?) LSA Bulletin.

l.  Our goal is to make the review process blind.   authors should, therefore, avoid making their identity known in any way after page 0 of the manuscript.
 
 

2.  COMPUTER-PREPARED MANUSCRIPTS

In general, make the appearance of the manuscript as simple as possible.  Avoid desktop publishing effects.

a.  Do not use any headers or footers other than page numbers.

b.  Avoid unusual fonts.

c.  Use endnotes rather than footnotes.

d.  Use underscore in place of italics and double underscore in place of SMALL CAPITALS if possible (this makes it easier for the typesetters).
 
 

3.  TYPEFACES AND UNDERSCORES

A single underscore indicates italic type, a double underscore indicates SMALL CAPITALS, a wavy underscore indicates boldface. Use these for the following purposes ONLY:

a.  Use italics (underscore) for all cited linguistic forms and examples.  Do not use italics for emphasis, or to mark common loanwords or technical terms: ad hoc, façon de parler, ursprachlich, binyan, etc.

b.  Use SMALL CAPITALS (double underscore) to mark a technical term at its first use or definition, or to give emphasis to a word or phrase in the text.

c.  Use boldface (wavy underscore) for certain forms in Oscan and Umbrian, and to distinguish Gaulish and other forms originally written in  the Greek alphabet.

d. Do not use any special typefaces or type sizes in headings.
 
 

4. PUNCTUATION

a.  Use single quotation marks, except for quotes within quotes.  The second member of a pair of quotation marks should precede any other adjacent mark of punctuation, unless the other mark is part of the quoted matter: The word means 'cart' not 'horse'.  He writes, 'This is false'.

b.  Do not enclose any cited linguistic examples in quotation marks.  See ¶6.

c.  Indent long quotations (more than about 40 words) without quotation marks.

d.  Do not hyphenate words containing prefixes unless a misreading will result; hyphenate if the stem begins with a capital letter; non-Dravidian, Proto-Athabaskan.

e.  Indicate ellipsis by three periods, close set, with a blank space before and after like ... this.

f.  Use a comma before the last member of a series of three or more coordinate elements: A, B, and C; X, Y, or Z.  Do note use a comma after the expressions e.g. and i.e.
 
 

5.  NOTES

a.  Number all notes to the body of the text serially throughout the manuscript.

b.  The note reference number in the body of the text is a raised numeral, not enclosed in parentheses.  Place note numbers at the ends of sentences wherever possible, after all punctuation marks.

c.  Type all notes to the body of the text as endnotes, double spaced, following the entire text (see ¶1i).

d.  Make each note a separate paragraph beginning with its reference number, raised above the line and not followed by any punctuation mark.

e.  Place any acknowledgment footnote at the end of the abstract, keyed with an asterisk.

f.  Number footnotes to special matter separately for each piece of special matter and place them on the same page as the special matter.

g. Avoid notes in book notices.
 
 

6.  CITED FORMS

a.  All linguistic examples cited in standard orthography or transliteration (but not in phonetic or phonemic transcription) should be italicized. (Remember when submitting to the journal, they should be underscored.)

b.  Enclose transcriptions either within (phonetic) square brackets or within (phonemic) slashes: the suffix [q], the word /rek/.  Do not italicize or underscore bracketed transcriptions.

c.  Use angle brackets for specific reference to graphemes:  the letter <q>.

d.  Transliterate or transcribe all forms in any language not normally written with the Latin alphabet, including Greek, unless there is a compelling reason for using the original orthography.  Use IPA symbols (Language 66.50-2) unless there is another standard system for the language.

e.  After the first occurrence of non-English forms, provide a gloss in single quotation marks: Latin ovis 'sheep' is a noun.  No comma precedes the gloss and no comma follows, unless necessary for other reasons; Latin ovis 'sheep', canis 'dog' and equus 'horse' are nouns.  See   ¶8 for other instructions on glosses.

f.  Use a fine pen to insert special characters and diacritics by hand.  Draw diacritics in the exact position Dan form what they are meant to assume in print.
 
 

7.  NUMBERED EXAMPLES, RULES, AND FORMULAS

a.  Type each numbered item on a separate indented line with the number in parentheses; indent after the number; use lowercase letters to group sets of related items:

(2)        a.  Down the hill rolled the baby carriage.
             b.  Out of the house strolled my mother's best friend.

8.  GLOSSES AND TRANSLATIONS OF EXAMPLES

Examples not in English must be translated or glossed as appropriate.  Sometimes, both a translation and a word-for-word or morph-by-morph gloss are appropriate.

a.  Place the translation or gloss of an example sentence or phrase on a new line below the example:

(26) La nouvelle constitution approuvéé (par le congrès), le président renforça ses pouvoirs.
        'The new constitution having been approved (by congress), the president consolidated his power'.

(17)  Omdat duidelijk is dat hie ziek is.
         because clear     is that he ill     is

(1.)  Place a hyphen between morphs within the words in the original, and a corresponding hyphen in the gloss:

(41)  fog-ok     fel   próbál-ni olvas-ni
        will-1SG up  try-INF       read-INF

(2.)  If one morph in the original corresponds to two or more elements in the gloss (cumulative exponence), separate the latter by a period, except for persons; there is no period at the end of a word.

(5) es-tis be-2PL.PRES.IND.ACT

(3.)  Gloss lexical roots or stems in lowercase roman type.
        Gloss persons as 1, 2, 3, and 4.
        Gloss all other grammatical categories in SMALL CAPITALS (double underscore).

(4.) Abbreviate glosses for grammatical categories.   List the abbreviations in a note.
 
 

a.  Abbreviations ending in a lower-case letter have a following period; abbreviations ending in a capital do not.

b.  Names of language used as adjectives are often abbreviated prenominally; the editors follow the practice of Merriam-Webster dictionaries for these abbreviations.

c. Use prime notation (e.g. S', V") rather than bar notation.
 
 

10.  TITLES AND HEADINGS

a.  Use the same roman typesize as the body of the text for all titles and headings.

b.  Capitalize only the first word and such words as the orthography of the language requires.

c  Do not use more than two levels of headings, e.g. 1, 2.3, but not 3.2.4

d.  Place section headings on a line with the section number and the first line of the section:

1.  Introduction.  The recent renaissance of ...

11.  CITATIONS IN THE TEXT

Within the text, give only a brief citation in parentheses consisting of the author's surname, the year of publication, and the page number(s) where relevant: (Rice 1989) or (Yip 1991:75-6).

a.  If a cited publication has more than two authors, use the surname of the first author, followed by et al.

b.  If the author's name is part of the text, then use this form: Rice (1989:167) comments ...

c. Do not use notes for citations only.
 
 

12.  REFERENCES

At the end of the manuscript, except in the book notice (see ¶ 12i), provide a full bibliography, double spaced, beginning on a separate page with the heading References, using roman type throughout.

a.  Arrange the entries alphabetically by surnames of authors, with each entry as separate hanging indented paragraph.

b.  List multiple works by the same author in ascending chronological order.

c.  Use suffixed letters a, b, c, etc. to distinguish more than one item published by a single author in the same year.

d.  If more than one article is cited from one book, list the book as a separate entry under the editor's name, with cross-references to the book in the entries for each article.

e.  Do not replace given names with initials unless the person normally uses initials; Barker, M.A.R., but Lehiste, Ilse.

f.  Use a middle name or initial only if the author normally does so: Heath, Shirley Brice; Oehrle, Richard T.

g.  Each entry should contain the following elements in the order and punctuation given: (first) author's surname, given name(s) or initial(s); given name and surname of the other authors. year of publication. Full title and subtitle of the work.   For a journal article: Full name of the journal and volume number (roman type).inclusive page numbers for the entire article.  For an article in a book: title of the book, ed. by full name(s) o editor(s), inclusive page numbers.  For books and monographs, the edition, volume or part number (if applicable) and series title (if any).   Place of publication: Publisher.

h.  Some examples follow:

Dorian, Nancy C. (ed.) 1989. Investigating obsolescence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
hale, Kenneth, and Josie White Eagle. 1980. A preliminary metrical account of Winnebago accent.  International Journal of American Linguistics 46.117-32.
Miner, Kenneth. 1990. Winnebago accent: the rest of the data. Lawrence: University of Kansas, ms.
Perlmutter, David M. 1978. Impersonal passives and the unaccusative hypothesis.   Berkeley Linguistics Society 4.157-89.
Poser, William. 1984. The phonetics and phonology of tone and intonation in Japanese. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.
Prince, Ellen. 1991. Relative clauses, resumptive pronouns, and kind-sentences. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago.
Rice, Keren. 1989. A grammar of Slave. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Singler, John Victor. 1992. Review of Melanesian English and the Oceanic substrate, by Roger M. Keesing. Language 68.176-82.
Stockwell, Robert P. 1993. Obituary of Dwight L. Bolinger. Language 69.113-37.
Yip, Moira. 1991. Coronals, consonant clusters, and the coda condition. The special status of coronals: internal and external evidence, ed. by Carole Paradis and Jean-François Prunet, 61-78. Sand Diego, CA: Academic Press.