What do we need to consider in order to understand the innovation and propagation of phonological change, and to reconstruct past phonological states? The Third Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology will offer an opportunity to discuss fundamental questions in historical phonology as well as specific analyses of historical data.
The symposium will be hosted by the Department of Linguistics and English Language and the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh on the 30th November and 1st December, 2017.
Our invited speaker for 2017 is Meredith Tamminga, University of Pennsylvania.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics and the Linguistics Association of Great Britain
The conference dates are 30th November and 1st December 2017. As in previous years, the conference will take place in the Informatics Forum and the Dugald Stewart Building, both part of the university’s central area. We are organising a wine reception for delegates and a pay-your-own-way dinner.
Speakers will be given the choice of a 20⁄10 minutes split between their talk and the question period or 25⁄5. If you are bringing handouts, we expect about 50 participants.
If you are presenting a poster, each presenter will have their own poster board, and the dimensions are roughly the same size as A0 (2’9” x 3’11” ft, 84.1 x 118.9 cm). Apparently, A0 poster edges may go over the frame slightly, but this should not be a problem. We will provide some sticky-backed strips/spots to hang the posters up. We recommend landscape, not portrait, but portrait can be accommodated if you let us know in advance.
Registration through the website is now closed. If you would still like to register, please get in touch with patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk
Edinburgh is well connected through Edinburgh Airport and the UK rail system, and the university’s central area is easily accessible, on the edge of Edinburgh’s remarkable Old Town, a few minutes’ walk from the Royal Mile. Edinburgh is the ancient capital of Scotland, and its Old Town and (18th century) New Town form a large UNESCO World Heritage Site. The University is easily accessible from anywhere in the city, and is within walking distance of the train station and all the city centre shops and restaurants.
For most people, travelling to the Symposium will involve either flying into or getting the train to Edinburgh and then either walking or getting a bus or a taxi to the conference venue. It’s easy to get into the city centre from Edinburgh airport: use the number 100 Airlink bus which leaves every few minutes and which drops you off next to the main train station (this is the last stop on the bus journey). This station (called Waverley Station) is where most intercity trains terminate, too. Another option is the Edinburgh Trams.
Waverley station is a good orientation point – it’s situated right in the centre of the city, between the New Town and the Old Town, just next to Princes Street (Princes Street is the main central shopping street in Edinburgh), and there are normally lots of taxis available at the station (if you want to take a taxi to the conference venue, ask them to take to the Informatics Forum at the University). It’s about 15 minutes’ walk from the station to the University. You need to head south: walk up from the station into the Old Town along Cockburn Street and then up the Royal Mile and along George IV Bridge.
If you need to book accommodation for the symposium, we recommend trying the KM Central (formerly the Kenneth Mackenzie Suite) or Richmond Apartments. The university also has some other types of accommodation at other nearby locations, which may also be worth investigating.
If they are full, or you’d like to stay somewhere more luxurious or cheaper, the easiest way to find somewhere is to use one of the many internet accommodation search sites. If you try Trip Advisor, you’ll find lots of details and some interesting comments about the hotels (not always to be trusted, but you can probably go by the average opinion). Enter your check-in and check-out dates, select the number of adults staying in the room and click on ‘find hotels’. You can select the currency that you’d like to use and you can ‘sort by’ price or popularity. If you click on ‘map’, you can see where the hotel is – look for one towards the south of the centre.
Some hotels listed there which look suitable are:
The Grassmarket Hotel
This one may be quite loud (the Grassmarket is a popular drinking area), but seems quite cheap, and is 10 minutes’ walk from the conference venue
Jurys Inn
This is in the ugliest building in Edinburgh, but it’s probably fine as a hotel (about 15 mins’ walk)
Royal British Hotel
Very central in Edinburgh, maybe a little jaded (about 20 mins’ walk)
Ten Hill Place Hotel
Recommended, if a bit more expensive (very close to the conference)
Ibis Edinburgh Centre
Fine if faceless (about 10 mins’ walk)
Express By Holiday Inn Edinburgh Royal Mile
Looks fine but may be a bit loud (about 10 mins’ walk)
Travelodge Edinburgh Central
Faceless but probably fine (about 15 mins’ walk)
Apex City Hotel
May be quite loud (it’s on the Grassmarket), but seems quite nice (about 10 mins’ walk)
Radisson SAS
More pricey, but meant to be nice, well situated (about 10 mins’ walk)
The cheapest option would be to stay at one of the many hostels in Edinburgh. These have some very cheap accommodation, and several have private rooms, too. There are a number of hostel searching websites, which should help you to see what’s available, and to book accommodation:
The main YHA hostel in Edinburgh is new and looks nice, although it’s a bit of a distance from the conference (30 minutes’ walk). There are lots of buses, though.
Central Edinburgh is made up of the New Town, to the north, and the Old Town, to the south, with Princes Street and (Princes Street Gardens) in between. Most of the buildings of the University of Edinburgh (including the symposium venue) are in the Old Town, towards the south. You should make sure that you have the chance to walk round the city while you’re here – it’s stunning. Walk up and down the Royal Mile to the castle at the top and the Scottish Parliament at the bottom, walk around the New Town (which starts at Princes Street and carries on northwards for several streets), or walk up Calton Hill and around Holyrood Park.
The symposium coincides with the Edinburgh Christmas Market, which is well worth a visit.
The symposium will be preceded by satellite workshop devoted to the ways in which laryngeal features influence or are involved in phonological change. This workshop is intended to be a relatively informal venue for discussion of such issues. It is not a formal part of the symposium and everyone is welcome to attend. There is a separate website for the workshop, here.
Here are the links to the websites for the previous conferences in the series:
The conference email address is sympo-org@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk.
Committee:
The call for papers is now closed
30th November–1st December 2017, Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh.
What do we need to consider in order to understand the innovation and propagation of phonological change, and to reconstruct past phonological states? The symposium will offer an opportunity to discuss fundamental questions in historical phonology as well as specific analyses of historical data.
Our plenary speaker is:
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.
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:
We invite one-page abstracts addressing these, or any other questions relevant to the symposium topics, by 17th July 2017.
The Symposium has a vague link to Papers in Historical Phonology. We encourage submission of papers presented at the symposium to PiHPh. See also the Preface to the first volume of PiHPh for an extended exposition of the kinds of questions the symposium is meant to address.
We expect to keep the symposium fee low (in the region of £25).
Please submit your abstracts via EasyChair. 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 for any reason — it will be rejected.
To submit an abstract, please visit the EasyChair submission page. If you don’t already have an EasyChair account, you will have to create one (this is a quick process). Once you have logged in, click on ‘New Submission’ in the top left corner.
After filling in your contact information, enter the title of your abstract in the both the Title and Abstract fields, and provide three keywords in the keywords field. Upload your abstract in pdf format by clicking on ‘Choose a file’ at the bottom of the page. If you do not upload a PDF file, your paper cannot be considered for the conference.