Journal Policies

Editorial Oversight

The Editorial team is composed of the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) and the Associate Editor(s). The founding editorial team consists of Clemens Mayr as EIC and Amy Rose Deal and Florian Schwarz as Associate Editors.

Upon the expiration of the five-year term of the EIC (in 2031 and every five years thereafter), the editorial team has the responsibility of determining whether to initiate another five-year term for the same EIC, to appoint an existing associate editor as the new EIC, or to recruit a new EIC from outside the editorial team. The same responsibility applies in the case that the EIC resigns their role.

The editorial team has the responsibility for determining if a need for additional Associate Editors exists, and for securing the services of such individuals should they be required. In the event that an associate editor resigns their role, the remaining members of the editorial team have the responsibility for identifying and recruiting a new associate editor.

The editorial team has full control over the contents, management, and governance of the journal, subject to the limitations in section 2.2.2 of its Constitution. It is responsible for making the strategic decisions necessary to implement the Journal’s mission. It is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the journal.

The EIC serves a renewable five-year term, beginning in 2026. This term is renewable upon mutual agreement between the EIC and the other members of the editorial team.

The Associate Editors are appointed for a term of three years, which is renewable upon mutual agreement between the editorial team.

For each submission, one member of the editorial team will be selected as the handling editor. The handling editor is responsible for reviewer selection and for reaching a decision on the submission in light of reviewer comments.

As representatives of the semantics community, the journal's Editorial Board may be called upon to advise the editorial team in matters related to the journal’s direction, format, publisher, or other high-level issues as determined by the editorial team.

Members of the Editorial Board are asked to support the journal as reviewers and by contributing, and encouraging others to contribute, high-quality research that falls in the journal’s scope.

The members of the Editorial Board represent the semantics community. The Editorial Board ideally contains at least 20 and at most 50 members. Board members serve a three-year term, which is renewable. Founding board members are appointed for the term 2026-2029. Selection for membership in the Editorial Board takes into account the candidate's previous service as a reviewer or potential to serve in such a role. The value of diversity across academic institutions, nationalities, and demographic factors will be kept in mind in appointing board members.

Peer Review Process

The EIC first examines whether the submission is generally suitable for Semantics of Natural Languages. If it is, the EIC assigns a handling editor. This may be the EIC themselves or one of the associate editors. The handling editor considers the paper closely and may initiate desk rejection or assign reviewers to the submission.

The EIC may desk reject submissions that are clearly not suitable for the journal. A handling editor may also desk reject a submission if, upon closer consideration, it is found not to be suitable.

Papers may be desk rejected for the following reasons:

They do not fall in the scope of the journal (e.g. a paper not about natural language semantics; a paper outside the tradition of formal semantics);
They are not directed toward an audience of linguists;
They fail to meet basic standards of scholarship, rigor, or originality.

Semantics of Natural Languages uses double-anonymous peer review for all peer-reviewed articles, which is regarded as the standard in linguistics for peer review.

The handling editor selects reviewers from the semantics community, based on match between the content of the manuscript and the reviewers' expertise. The journal does not permit authors to suggest peer reviewers to review their research.

Prior to acceptance of the review request, the reviewer receives the title and abstract of the paper. Upon acceptance of the review request, the full anonymised manuscript including any accompanying data/figure files is supplied to the reviewer.

According to its double-anonymous peer review policy, Semantics of Natural Languages does not publish peer review reports alongside articles, or the names of the peer reviewers who have undertaken review of the article. Anonymised peer review reports are held securely and privately in the journal’s publishing platform for the author to access whenever they choose to.

The Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This journal follows the publisher's guidance on the use of generative AI for submissions and in the journal's publishing workflow.

Authors should read the publisher's AI policy in full and adhere to it before submitting their research to this journal, paying particular attention to acceptable and unacceptable uses of generative AI and advice on whether it is necessary for an 'AI Declaration Statement' to be made with their submission.

Organization and Governance

The foundation Linguistics in Open Access (LingOA), a nonprofit foundation (‘Stichting’) under Dutch law, is the legal owner of the title Semantics of Natural Languages.

The organization and governance structures of Semantics of Natural Languages can be viewed in full via the journal's Constitution.

Business Practices

Advertising

This journal does not permit any advertising on the journal’s website and will never consider requests of any kind from other parties wishing to advertise in the journal or on its webpages.

Direct Marketing

This journal does not engage in any direct marketing practices.

The publisher, the Open Library of Humanities (OLH), employs a Community Engagement Manager who undertakes general marketing activities for the publisher including the promotion of its journals. The Community Engagement Manager does not, however, engage in direct marketing for any OLH journals and this does not affect the editorial decisions of OLH journals in any way.

Other Revenue

Semantics of Natural Languages’ long-term publishing and hosting costs are funded by OLH’s Library Partnership Subsidy Model. The journal also accepts Voluntary Author Contributions(VACs) for articles.

These streams of revenue this do not affect the editorial decisions of the journal in any way.

Preprint Policy

We welcome submissions that have been posted to online archives (e.g. semantics archive, lingbuzz) or personal websites. Prior publication of related work in a conference proceedings should be declared in a ‘Comment to the Editor’ upon submission. Submissions must not have been published in any other journal and copyright must remain with the author.