NOWELE | North-Western European Language Evolution

Managing Editor
ORCID logoStephen Laker | Kyushu University, Fukuoka | laker.stephen at gmail.com
Editors
Michael Barnes | University College London
Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr. | Leiden University
Kurt Gustav Goblirsch | University of South Carolina
ORCID logoRobert Mailhammer | University of Western Sydney, Penrith NSW

NOWELE: North-Western European Language Evolution is an interdisciplinary journal devoted not only to the study of the early and more recent history of a locally determined group of languages, but also to the study of purely theoretical questions concerning language development.

NOWELE welcomes submissions dealing with all aspects of the histories of – and with intra- and extra-linguistic factors contributing to change and variation within – Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Frisian, Dutch, German, English, Gothic and the Early Runic language. Accordingly, studies involving past and present neighbouring languages such as Celtic, Finnish, Lithuanian, Russian and French, in so far as these have played and are playing a role in the development or present status of north-western European languages through contact, will be accepted.

NOWELE accepts, after peer review, papers within the outlined framework analyses based on classical philological principles, studies of a minute detail, be it a socio-historical phenomenon or a theoretical concept, as well as analyses dealing with a larger group of phenomena or with the problems which a theory may present. NOWELE welcomes reviews and review articles.

ISSN: 0108-8416 | E-ISSN: 2212-9715
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/nowele
Volumes and issues

Volume 77 (2024)

Volume 76 (2023)

Volume 75 (2022)

Volume 74 (2021)

Volume 73 (2020)

Volume 72 (2019)

Volume 71 (2018)

Volume 70 (2017)

Volume 69 (2016)

Volume 68 (2015)

Volume 67 (2014)

Volume 66 (2013)

Volume 64/65 (2012) NOWELE Volume 64/65 (April 2012)

Volume 62/63 (2011) NOWELE Volume 62/63 (October 2011)

Volume 60/61 (2011) NOWELE Volume 60/61 (January 2011)

Volume 58/59 (2010) NOWELE Volume 58/59 (June 2010)

Volume 56/57 (2009) NOWELE Volume 56/57 (June 2009)

Volume 54/55 (2008) NOWELE Volume 54/55 (October 2008)

Volume 53 (2008) NOWELE Volume 53 (May 2008)

Volume 52 (2007) NOWELE Volume 52 (October 2007)

Volume 50/51 (2007) NOWELE Volume 50/51 (February 2007)

Volume 49 (2006) NOWELE Volume 49 (August 2006)

Volume 48 (2006) NOWELE Volume 48 (January 2006)

Volume 46/47 (2005) NOWELE Volume 46/47 (June 2005)

Volume 45 (2004) NOWELE Volume 45 (October 2004)

Volume 44 (2004) NOWELE Volume 44 (March 2004)

Volume 43 (2003) NOWELE Volume 43 (September 2003)

Volume 42 (2003) NOWELE Volume 42 (March 2003)

Volume 41 (2002) NOWELE Volume 41 (October 2002)

Volume 40 (2002) NOWELE Volume 40 (April 2002)

Volume 39 (2001) NOWELE Volume 39 (September 2001)

Volume 38 (2001) NOWELE Volume 38 (March 2001)

Volume 37 (2000) NOWELE Volume 37 (September 2000)

Volume 36 (2000) NOWELE Volume 36 (January 2000)

Volume 35 (1999) NOWELE Volume 35 (May 1999)

Volume 34 (1998) NOWELE Volume 34 (December 1998)

Volume 33 (1998) NOWELE Volume 33 (March 1998)

Volume 31/32 (1997) NOWELE Volume 31/32 (November 1997)

Volume 30 (1997) NOWELE Volume 30 (March 1997)

Volume 28/29 (1996) NOWELE Volume 28/29 (August 1996)

Volume 27 (1996) NOWELE Volume 27 (March 1996)

Volume 26 (1995) NOWELE Volume 26 (August 1995)

Volume 25 (1995) NOWELE Volume 25 (March 1995)

Volume 24 (1994) NOWELE Volume 24 (August 1994)

Volume 23 (1994) NOWELE Volume 23 (January 1994)

Volume 21/22 (1993) NOWELE Volume 21/22 (April 1993)

Volume 20 (1992) NOWELE Volume 20 (September 1992)

Volume 19 (1992) NOWELE Volume 19 (March 1992)

Volume 18 (1991) NOWELE Volume 18 (September 1991)

Volume 17 (1991) NOWELE Volume 17 (March 1991)

Volume 16 (1990) NOWELE Volume 16 (September 1990)

Volume 15 (1990) NOWELE Volume 15 (March 1990)

Volume 14 (1989) NOWELE Volume 14 (October 1989)

Volume 13 (1989) NOWELE Volume 13 (April 1989)

Volume 12 (1988) NOWELE Volume 12 (May 1988)

Volume 11 (1988) NOWELE Volume 11 (February 1988)

Volume 10 (1987) NOWELE Volume 10 (October 1987)

Volume 9 (1987) NOWELE Volume 9 (April 1987)

Volume 8 (1986) NOWELE Volume 8 (September 1986)

Volume 7 (1986) NOWELE Volume 7 (March 1986)

Volume 6 (1985) NOWELE Volume 6 (September 1985)

Volume 5 (1985) NOWELE Volume 5 (March 1985)

Volume 4 (1984) NOWELE Volume 4 (October 1984)

Volume 3 (1984) NOWELE Volume 3 (June 1984)

Volume 2 (1983) NOWELE Volume 2 (December 1983)

Volume 1 (1983) NOWELE Volume 1 (August 1983)

Board
Advisory Editorial Board
John Ole Askedal | University of Oslo
Hans Basbøll | University of Southern Denmark
ORCID logoBernard Comrie | University of California, Santa Barbara
Andreas Dufter | Universität München
Lars-Erik Edlund | Umeå University
Carla Falluomini | University of Perugia
R.D. Fulk | Indiana University, Bloomington
ORCID logoElvira Glaser | Universität Zürich
Erik W. Hansen | University of Southern Denmark
Odd Einar Haugen | University of Bergen
Eugen Hill | Universität Köln
Jarich Hoekstra | Universität Kiel
Petri Kallio | University of Helsinki
Yuri A. Kleiner | University of St. Petersburg
Steffen Krogh | Aarhus University
Anatoly Liberman | University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Bernard Mees | RMIT University of Melbourne
Robert Nedoma | Universität Wien
ORCID logoTerttu Nevalainen | University of Helsinki
Michael Lerche Nielsen | University of Copenhagen
Birgit Anette Olsen | University of Copenhagen
Sara M. Pons-Sanz | Cardiff University
Don Ringe | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Elke Ronneberger-Sibold | Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Peter C.H. Schrijver | Utrecht University
Michael Schulte | University of Agder
Elena Smirnova | University of Neuchâtel
ORCID logoPatrick V. Stiles | University College London
ORCID logoSeiichi Suzuki | Kansai Gaidai University, Hirakata
Michiel de Vaan | University of Lausanne
Subscription Info
Current issue: 77:1, available as of April 2024

General information about our electronic journals.

Subscription rates

All prices for print + online include postage/handling.

Online-only Print + online
Volume 78 (2025): 2 issues; ca. 240 pp. EUR 156.00 EUR 209.00
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Individuals may apply for a special online-only subscription rate of EUR 50.00 per volume.
Private subscriptions are for personal use only, and must be pre-paid and ordered directly from the publisher.

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Volume 76 (2023) 2 issues; 240 pp. EUR 147.00 EUR 173.00
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Guidelines

Before submitting, please consult these guidelines. It is not essential that your manuscript follow all the rules of this style sheet on first submission. However, if your paper is accepted for publication, your paper must be changed accordingly.

Files

Electronic files

Please make sure that you supply all text and graphic files of the final version of your contribution. Please delete any personal comments/notes.

Files in Word are preferred, but our typesetters can convert almost anything. If, for some reason, a different format is required than supplied, we will contact you. For submissions in LATEX, please supply all associated files (.sty, .bib).

Any graphics created in Word (or Excel) can remain in the text and do not require special action. Graphics that have been created in another program, such as special purpose graphics software, and any other illustrations, should be supplied separately. For photos or plates, a resolution of at least 300 dpi (preferably 600 dpi), at the required size, is recommended.

"Hard copy"

Additionally, please provide PDF files with embedded fonts. During the production process the PDFs are referenced by the typesetter as "hard copy" to help solve problems in the files, such as conversion errors, distorted tables, lost graphs, etc.

File naming convention

When naming the files please use a clear and consistent file naming convention, that allows us and the typesetters to identify the article/review easily. We suggest using the (first) author’s surname. E.g., for an article or review written by Joe Johnson, the files should be named johnson.docx, johnson.pdf. Figures can be named as follows johnson-fig1.eps, johnson-fig2.jpg, etc.

Additional materials

If your article has associated (audio-visual) materials or datasets, the text of the article should refer to those and clearly show with which figure/table etc. that material is associated. Please provide the files and a list containing the name of each associated file, its type, size, and caption/description.

If the additional files are hosted elsewhere, a link – preferably a persistent URL, such as DOI – should be supplied. This hosting location should ideally be permanent, such as an institutional or subject repository, rather than a personal website. Include the reference and link to those external materials in the text of your article and/or listed under 'Appendix', and as a reference in the reference section.

Language

This journal publishes in English and German.

If not written by a highly proficient user of the language, it is advisable to have the paper checked by a native speaker or highly proficient language user prior to submission. Papers in English should use either American English or British English spelling consistently throughout the paper.

Any notational conventions for a particular subfield should be used consistently.

Elements of the article

Order

Title: Subtitle
Author’s Name (on separate cover sheet at initial, blind submission)
Author’s Affiliation (on separate cover sheet at initial, blind submission)
Abstract
Keywords
Article text
(Funding information)
(Acknowledgments)
(End notes, if applicable)
References
(Appendix)
Address for correspondence (on separate cover sheet at initial, blind submission)
Dates Received/(Revised/)Accepted

Title and subtitle

If the article has a subtitle, this should be separated from the title by a colon (unless the main title ends with a question or exclamation mark).

The title and subtitle should use sentence case; that is, only the first character (of the main and of the subtitle) is capitalized, except for proper nouns and other words which are generally capitalized by a more specific rule.

If your contribution is a book review , use the following format for the ‘title’ of the review:

Review of Klaus-Uwe Panther & Günter Radden (eds.) Motivation in grammar and the lexicon (Human Cognitive Processing, 27). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. vii, 306 pp. DOI: 10.1075/hcp.27

Review of Philip Seargeant. Exploring World Englishes: Language in a global context. London & New York: Routledge, 2012. xiv, 218 pp.

Review of English Accent Coach <www.englishaccentcoach.com>. Developed by Ron Thomson.

We advise against including ISBNs, price information and URLs (unless for online resources), and strongly favor including the DOI as a permanent link to the book and its authoritative metadata.

Author’s/reviewer’s name and affiliation

Provide all authors’ names in the order in which they are to appear in the publication. In case of an article with multiple authors, one author must be identified as the corresponding author. 

The affiliation(s) provided for each author should be the affiliation(s) current at the time of doing the research and writing the article. The affiliation should be only the name of the university or institution in the form that the relevant institution itself has decided upon for international use, and the country of that institution.

In case of a book review, the reviewer’s name is preceded by ‘Reviewed by’.

Please also provide the ORCID (digital identifier for researchers, https://orcid.org) for all authors who have one.

Abstract

Each article should start off with an abstract of up to 120 words. An abstract should be maximally informative, use the active voice, and include the 4 or 5 most important key words, findings, or implications. It should objectively reflect the purpose and content of the paper. Abstracts should be self-contained: define abbreviations and unique terms, spell out names, and give reference to the context in which the paper should be viewed (e.g., it builds on the author’s previous work, or responds to another publication).

Key words

The abstract should be followed by a list of up to 10 key words, separated by commas, that indicate the most important topics, languages or language families, methods and/or frameworks used in the article.

Section headings

Articles should be reasonably divided into sections and, if necessary, into subsections. Please mark the hierarchy of subheadings as follows:

Heading 1 = bold, two lines space above and one line space below.
Heading 1.1 = normal, one line space above and one line space below.
Heading 1.1.1 = italics, one line space above, text on new line.
Heading 1.1.1.1 = italics, one line space above, text on new line.

NB. This fourth level is only to be used if absolutely indispensable.

Funding information

If you received funding through a grant for the research that is discussed in the article, provide details on this, including funder name and grant number in a separate section called “Funding information” before (an Acknowledgment section and) the References.

Acknowledgments

We prefer the use of an acknowledgment section at the end of an article, instead of an acknowledgment (foot)note. Acknowledgments of assistance, permissions, etc., other than funding (see above), can be included in this section.

Notes

Notes should be kept to a minimum and not be used for references. Note indicators in the text should appear at the end of sentences, preferably, and follow punctuation marks. If possible, please use the (foot)note option of your word processing program. Notes can be supplied as either footnotes or end notes and will be formatted by the typesetters as either depending on the style of the journal.

Appendixes

Appendixes should follow the references section. Please refer to the appendix in the main text.

If the appendix consists of additional materials that are not included in the (print edition of) the article itself, and the files are to be hosted and made available by us, please provide with your article and those files also a separate list containing the file name of each associated file, its type, and caption/description.

Address for correspondence

Please include in the article/book review the full address and email address of the corresponding author. For reasons of privacy, we suggest that this should never be a home address, as this address will be included in the published article.

Formatting

Please use a minimum of page settings. The preferred setting is 12pt with at least 14pt line spacing. The only relevant codes are those pertaining to font enhancements (italics, bold, caps, small caps, etc.), punctuation, and the format of the references.

Symbols and special characters

Please use Unicode fonts! If you have to use characters that are not available in Unicode, please make sure that you supply the font with your article.

Emphasis and foreign words

Use italics for foreign words, highlighting, and emphasis. Bold should be used only for highlighting within italics and for headings. Please refrain from the use of FULL CAPS (except for focal stress and abbreviations) and underlining (except for highlighting within examples, as an alternative for boldface).

Quotations

Text quotations in the main text should be given in double quotation marks. Quotations longer than 3 lines should have a blank line above and below and a left indent, without quotation marks, and with the appropriate reference to the source.

For terms or expressions (e.g., “context of situation”) please use double quotes. For translations of cited forms use single quotes.

Listings

Should not be indented. If numbered, please number as follows:

1. ..................... or a. .......................

2. ..................... or b. .......................

Listings that run on with the main text should be numbered in parentheses: (1).............., (2)............., etc.

Examples

Should be numbered with Arabic numerals (1,2,3, etc.) in parentheses and indented. Each subsequent level in the example (a), (b) gets one indent. If the glosses should be aligned in the final product, please also align them, with spaces or tabs, in the file and hard copy/PDF submitted for production.

     (3)  a.     Ed en   Floor    gaan   samen-wonen
                   Ed and Floor   go      together-live.INF
                  ‘Ed and Floor are going to live together’

            b.    Maarten  en     Stefanie     zijn  uit   elkaar
                   Maarten and   Stefanie    be   out RECP
                  ‘Maarten and Stefanie have split up’

Glosses

For translations of cited forms in the text use single quotes. E.g., voorbeeld ‘example’. For detailed conventions for interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses, please refer to https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php.

Full caps for abbreviations in glosses will be changed to small caps during typesetting.

Tables, figures and plates

Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively per article, and be provided with concise captions (max. 240 characters).

All figures and tables should be referenced in the text, e.g. (see Figure 5). References should not be limited to relative indicators such as “as in the table below”, or “in this table: ...”.

If the table or figure is not enclosed in the text file, indicate the preferred position of the table or figure in the text by inserting a line “ at  at Insert (file name) here” at the appropriate position.

The typesetters will place the table/figure at the optimal location given the lay-out of the relevant page, taking into account heading and notes etc. Tables/figures may thus be placed at either the top or bottom of the page on which it is mentioned, or on the following (facing) page.

Tables, figures and plates can be submitted in color, where needed. In tables, keep shading to a functional minimum and for individual cells only.

All tables, plates, and figures eventually have to fit the following maximum area, either portrait or landscape: 12 cm x 20 cm at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (600 dpi preferred).

Notes in tables and figures should not be regular notes. Please use a table note or a figure note as in the example below. Standard note indicators in tables are *, **, or a, b, etc. The note itself is then inserted directly below the table/figure.

References

References in the text

These should be as precise as possible, giving page references where necessary; for example: (Clahsen 1991: 252) , or: as in Brown et al. (1991: 252).

References section

This journal uses the Unified Stylesheet for Linguistics.

The section should include all (and only!) references that are actually mentioned in the text. References should be listed first alphabetically and then chronologically. Repeated names should not be replaced by dashes. Journal titles should be written out in full, not abbreviated.

Authors are encouraged to supply – with a reference, not instead of – the DOI if they happen to have that information readily available.

Use capitalization of all lexical words for journal titles and capitalize only the first word (plus proper names and the first word after a colon) for book/dissertation titles and article/chapter titles. The journal style for capitalization should also be applied to titles of book series.

Examples

Books:

Görlach, Manfred. 2003. English words abroad (Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice 7). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Hayashi, Makoto, Geoffrey Raymond & Jack Sidnell (eds.). 2013. Conversational repair and human understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511757464

Stewart, Thomas W., Jr. 2000. Mutation as morphology : Bases, stems, and shapes in Scottish Gaelic. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University dissertation.

Article in book:

Adams, Clare A. & Anthony Dickinson. 1981. Actions and habits: Variation in associative representation during instrumental learning. In Norman E. Spear & Ralph R. Miller (eds.), Information processing in animals: Memory mechanisms, 143–186. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Article in journal:

Claes, Jeroen & Luis A. Ortiz López. 2011. Restricciones pragmáticas y sociales en la expresión de futuridad en el español de Puerto Rico [Pragmatic and social restrictions in the expression of the future in Puerto Rican Spanish]. Spanish in Context 8. 50–72.

Pedersen, Johan. 2005. The Spanish impersonal se-construction: Constructional variation and change. Constructions 1, http://www.constructions-online.de. (3 April, 2007.)

Submission

Submissions and any other editorial correspondence should be addressed to:
Dr. Stephen Laker (laker.stephen at gmail.com)
Kyushu University, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, FUKUOKA 819-0395, Japan

Always submit two copies of your submission to NOWELE: one in editable format (.docx is preferred) and one in .pdf.

Please consult the journal's Guidelines page. It is not essential that your manuscript follow all the rules of this style sheet on first submission. However, if your paper is accepted for publication, your paper must be changed accordingly.

Ethics

John Benjamins journals are committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and to supporting ethical research practices.

Authors and reviewers are kindly requested to read this Ethics Statement .

Please also note the guidance on the use of (generative) AI in the statement.

Rights and Permissions

Authors must ensure that they have permission to use any third-party material in their contribution; the permission should include perpetual (not time-limited) world-wide distribution in print and electronic format.

For information on authors' rights, please consult the rights information page.

Open Access

Articles accepted for this journal can be made Open Access through payment of an Article Publication Charge (APC) of EUR 1800 (excl. tax). To arrange this, please contact openaccess at benjamins.nl once your paper has been accepted for publication. More information can be found on the publisher's Open Access Policy page.

Corresponding authors from institutions with which John Benjamins has a Read & Publish arrangement can publish Open Access without paying a fee. Please consult this list of institutions for up-to-date information on which articles qualify.

For information about permission to post a version of your article online or in an institutional repository ('green' open access or self-archiving), please consult the rights information page.

If the article is not (to be made) Open Access, there is no fee for the author to publish in this journal.

Archiving

John Benjamins Publishing Company has an agreement in place with Portico for the archiving of all its online journals and e-books.

Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CFF: Historical & comparative linguistics

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General