36.1967, Confs: 7th Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology (United Kingdom)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1967. Wed Jun 25 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1967, Confs: 7th Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology (United Kingdom)

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Date: 25-Jun-2025
From: Pavel Iosad [pavel.iosad at ed.ac.uk]
Subject: 7th Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology


7th Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology
Short Title: ESHP7

Date: 01-Dec-2025 - 02-Dec-2025
Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Contact Email: eshp-org at mlist.is.ed.ac.uk
Meeting URL:
https://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/symposium-on-historical-phonology/eshp7/

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Phonology

Submission Deadline: 15-Aug-2025

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 15th August 2025.
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/ESHP7/
When submitting your abstract, you will need to log in to the EasyAbs
system. 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 (assuming that you would rather have a talk)
unless you state (in the ‘Comments’ field) that you would only like to
be considered for one of these formats.



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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1967
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