Hello. I'm a Professor of Historical Phonology in the department
of Linguistics and English
Language at the University of Edinburgh. I teach and
research a number of things, but they mainly group around these
three areas:- historical phonology
- phonological theory
- phonological variation and dialectology
- dialects of English from the North of England
- English (and Scots) more generally, in all its/their glory
- other (West) Germanic languages
- and, to an extent, (South) Slavic languages
I've worked on topics like these: obstruent lenition, laryngeal specifications, debuccalisation, the causes of phonological change, constraints on change, diachronic phonological typology, the role of individuals in phonological change, Liverpool English, palatalistion, the phonological interpretation of dialect literature, representational phonological theory, the history of phonology, the interpretation of frequency effects in phonological change, the philosophy of historical linguistics, the interpretation of phonological variation, privativity in phonological theory, positional effects in phonology, opacity, diachronic phonotactics, Northern English T-to-R, English r-sandhi, English foot-structure, and other specific issues in the phonology and history of English. I admit that the connection between all of these may not be immediately obvious, but I'm also not sure that I can understand any of them without understanding them all (and I think they're all interesting, anyway...). You can click here to see a list of my publications and presentations, most of which are freely downloadable.
I am always happy to supervise
postgraduate research on issues like these, or on
any topic which touches on historical and/or theoretical
phonology (for any language) and/or on the linguistics of
varieties of Northern English. If you're thinking of doing a
PhD or Masters in any of these areas, feel free to email me to
discuss possible supervision, projects and/or funding.
I'm the main organiser of the UK's annual phonology conference, the Manchester Phonology Meeting (everyone should go the the mfm), and I'm the instigator of the biennial Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology. In fact, I've organised quite a few conferences. Meeting to discuss ideas is crucial, so I think organising conferences with the right atmosphere is quite important. I was the Meetings Secretary of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain (from 2003 to 2009), and I am currently a Member of Council of the Philological Society (a role I also carried out from 2007 to 2013). Here at Edinburgh, I convene the Historical Phonology Reading Group, and I co-convene our P-Workshop and English Language Research Group. I was also the representative for Edinburgh and for Linguistics on the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities doctoral funding panel (from 2015 to 2018).
With Joe Salmons, I edited the Handbook
of
Historical Phonology for Oxford University Press (2015),
which has been judged "an enduring resource" (Kostakis
2017), "indispensable" (Hall 2017)
and "an essential resource to generations of students and
scholars interested in and working on any and all aspects of
historical phonology" (Meyer 2018).
With Warren Maguire, I edited Dialect
Writing and the North of England (2020), which
aims to break new ground in understanding what dialect writing
is, and focuses on varieties of English from Northern England
(Wales 2022 describes it as "comprehensive", "serious" and
"methodical", showing "detailed knowledge of the linguistic
structures of the dialects being represented"). I am
co-editor, with Bettelou Los and Graeme Trousdale, of EUP's
book series Edinburgh Studies in
Historical Linguistics (since 2019), and I am also lead editor
for Papers in Historical Phonology
(since 2016). From 2014 to 2023, I edited (with Laurel Brinton
and Bernd Kortmann) the journal English Language and
Linguistics, and, from 2003-2010, I edited
(with Joan Beal and April McMahon) the 'Dialects of English'
book series (recordings of varieties of English
are available on the series' website).
Before coming to Edinburgh, I taught at what is
now Edge Hill University,
and before that I was at the University
of Newcastle upon Tyne, where I received a BA, MA and
PhD. I have also taught courses on phonology and historical
linguistics at linguistics summer schools such as the New York-St Petersburg
Institute, the Nordic Language Variation Network PhD
Seminar and the Eastern
European Generative Grammar School. I'd advise everyone
to go to things like this - they're fun. The picture of
me at the top of this page was taken at the 'Lost in
Linguistics' PhD seminar at the University of Oslo (in 2011),
and the one at the bottom was taken at the Third North West
Centre for Linguistics Research Training Workshop (in 2001),
which I co-organised at Edge Hill (I'm presenting the prize
for the best poster from a participant at the workshop). The
one in the middle is from the introductory session at the 30th
Manchester Phonology Meeting (in 2023 - it's closest to what I
look like now).
|
I have taught on the following courses at Edinburgh, but not all of them run every year:
|
I didn't always
have a beard
 |
| phone: +44 (0)131 651 1838 |
| email: patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk |
| room: 3.06 (3rd floor of Dugald Stewart Building) |
|
address: |