[Histling-l] Sixth Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology 4-5 Dec 2023

[Ben Molineaux Ress]

Apologies for cross-posting!

You are cordially invited to the

SIXTH EDINBURGH SYMPOSIUM ON HISTORICAL PHONOLOGY

4th - 5th DECEMBER 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline for abstracts: 31st July 2023

What do we need to consider in order to understand the innovation and propagation of phonological change, and to reconstruct past phonological states? The Sixth Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology will offer an opportunity to discuss fundamental questions in historical phonology as well as specific analyses of historical data.

Our plenary speaker is:
* SHELECE EASTERDAY (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa).

The invited speaker will address foundational issues in the discipline over two one-hour slots, one on each day of the symposium, and there will be considerable time allocated to discussion.

Symposium website:

http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/symposium-on-historical-phonology/eshp6/

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BACKGROUND

We see historical phonology as the branch of linguistics which links phonology to the past in any way. Its key concerns are (i) how and why the phonology of languages changes in diachrony, and (ii) the reconstruction of past synchronic stages of languages’ phonologies. These are inextricably linked: we need to understand what the past stages of languages were in order to understand which changes have occurred, and we need to understand which kinds of changes are possible and how they are implemented in order to reconstruct past synchronic stages.

We define phonology, broadly, as that part of language which deals with the patterning of the units used in speech, and we see historical phonology as an inherently inter(sub)disciplinary enterprise. In order to understand (i) and (ii), we need to combine insights from theoretical phonology, phonetics, sociolinguistics, dialectology, philology, and, no doubt, other areas. We need to interact with the traditions of scholarship that have grown up around individual languages and language families and with disciplines like history, sociology and palaeography.

The kinds of questions that we ask include at least the following:

- Which changes are possible in phonology?
- What is the precise patterning of particular changes in the history of specific languages?
- How do changes arise and spread through communities?
- Are there characteristics that phonological changes (or particular types of changes) always show?
- What counts as evidence for change, or for the reconstruction of previous stages of languages’ phonologies?
- What kinds of factors can motivate or constrain change?
- Are there factors which lead to stability in language, and militate against change?
- To what extent is phonological change independent of changes that occur at other levels of the grammar, such as morphology, syntax or semantics?
- What is the relationship between the study of completed phonological changes and of variation and change in progress?
- What is the relationship between phonological change and (first and second) language acquisition?
- What types of units and domains, at both segmental and prosodic levels, do we need in order to capture phonological change?
- How can the results of historical phonology inform phonological theorising?
- How does phonologisation proceed — how do non-phonological pressures come to be reflected in phonology?
- How can contact between speakers of different languages, or between speakers of distinct varieties of the same language, lead to phonological change, or to the creation of new phonological systems?
- How has historical phonology developed as an academic enterprise?

We invite one-page abstracts addressing these, or any other questions relevant to the symposium topics, by 31st July 2023.

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SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Please submit your abstracts via EasyAbs. Abstracts should not exceed one A4 or US Letter page with 2.5 cm or 1 inch margins in a 12pt font. The file should not include any information identifying the author(s). All examples and references in the abstract should be included on the one single page, but it is enough, when referring to previous work, to cite ‘Author (Date)’ in the body of the abstract — you do not need to give the full reference at the end of the abstract. Please do not submit an abstract if it goes over one page — it will be rejected.

To submit an abstract, use the EasyAbs submission page here:

https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/ESHP6

When submitting your abstract, you will need to log in to the EasyAbs system (this is a new process for EasyAbs). Please list all authors for your abstract in the 'Authors' field. We will consider all submitted abstracts for either a talk or a poster presentation (with the assumption that you would rather have a talk) unless you state (in the 'Comments' field, when you submit the abstract) that you would only like to be considered for one of these formats.

Please also check the ESHP6 website for details:

http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/symposium-on-historical-phonology/eshp6/

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ORGANISERS

The conference email address is: sympo-org at mlist.is.ed.ac.uk<mailto:sympo-org at mlist.is.ed.ac.uk>.

COMMIITTEE
Laura Arnold
Julian Bradfield
Patrick Honeybone
Pavel Iosad
Iris Kamil
Brandon Kieffer
Benjamin Molineaux
Ricardo Napoleão de Souza
Rebekka Puderbaugh
Oksana Lebedivna

ADVISORY BOARD
Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero (University of Manchester)
Fernando O. de Carvalho (Museu Nacional, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
András Cser (Pázmány Péter Catholic University)
Silke Hamann (University of Amsterdam)
Nathan Hill (Trinity College Dublin)
Adèle Jatteau (Université de Lille)
Darya Kavitskaya (University of California Berkeley)
James Kirby (LMU Munich)
Björn Köhnlein (Ohio State University)
Donka Minkova (University of California Los Angeles)
Martha Ratliff (Wayne State University)
Nikolaus Ritt (University of Vienna)
Michela Russo (Université Lyon III — Jean Moulin)
Joseph C. Salmons (University of Wisconsin — Madison)
Jade J. Sandstedt (Volda University College)
Tobias Scheer (University of Nice)
Ranjan Sen (University of Sheffield)
Patrycja Strycharczuk (University of Manchester)
Meredith Tamminga (University of Pennsylvania)
Danielle Turton (Lancaster University)

----
Benjamin Molineaux (he/him),
Lecturer in Linguistics
The University of Edinburgh
benmolineaux.ppls.ed.ac.uk<https://benmolineaux.ppls.ed.ac.uk/>

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336.
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