Language Sciences
Education
Ph.D. Germanic Linguistics, University of Texas-Austin, 1984
B.A. Philosophy, University if North Carolina-Charlotte, 1978
Biography
Joe Salmons is the Lester W.J. “Smoky” Seifert Professor of Linguistics. He is Vice President and President Elect of the American Dialect Society. His research focuses on language change and linguistic theory, especially as it bears on sound systems. He is the author of Sound Change (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and Dialect (forthcoming), and co-editor, with Jeroen Darquennes and Wim Vandenbussche, of Contact Linguistics (volume 2, de Gruyter Handbooks, 2025). He also works to integrate research in linguistics with teaching and outreach beyond the university. With Jim Leary, he co-founded the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures and (co-)directed it until 2022.
Teaching
Ling 237: Language in Wisconsin (CommB course)
Ling 303: Historical Linguistics
Ling 373: Topics in Linguistics
– Dialect
– Language Change in Progress
– Historical Sociolinguistics
Ling 690: Capstone
– Laryngeal Realism
– Development of Wisconsin English
– Algonquian Phonology
Ling 977: Seminar
– Laryngeal Realism
– Sound Change
Selected Publications
Forthcoming Laura Horton and Joseph Salmons. Irregularity and sound change in signed and spoken languages. Language.
Forthcoming David Natvig and Joseph Salmons. Final laryngeal neutralization. Companion to Phonology. Second edition.
2025 Joshua R. Brown, David Natvig and Joseph Salmons. eds. Historical Sociolinguistics. Special issue of Abralin.
2025 Jeroen Darquennes, Wim Vandenbussche and Joseph Salmons, eds. Contact Linguistics. Berlin: de Gruyter Handbooks. Volume 2.
2024 Rachyl Hietpas, Mirva Johnson, Laura Moquin, Joseph Salmons and Charlotte Vanhecke, eds. Selected proceedings of the 14th Workshop on Immigrant Languages in the Americas. Bergen: Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies.
2022 Cristopher Font-Santiago, Mirva Johnson and Joseph Salmons. Reallocation: How new forms arise from contact. Language and Linguistic Compass. 16.8. e12470. https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lnc3.12470
2021 Sound Change. Edinburgh University Press.
2021 Alexandra D’Arcy and Joseph Salmons. Peer review in linguistics journals: Best practices and emerging standards. Language. 97(4). e383-e407.
2018 A History of German: What the past reveals about today’s language. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2016 Monica Macaulay and Joseph Salmons. Synchrony and diachrony in Menominee derivational morphology. Morphology 27. 179–215.
1995 Gregory K. Iverson & Joseph C. Salmons. Aspiration and Laryngeal Representation in Germanic. Phonology 12. 369-396.
1992 Accentual Change and Language Contact: Comparative survey and case study of early northern Europe. Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press and London: Routledge.
1990 Bilingual Discourse Marking: Codeswitching, borrowing and convergence in some German-American Dialects. Linguistics 28. 453-480.
Website
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Salmons, J. Sound Change. -
Darquennes (Co-editor), J., J. Salmons (Co-editor), and W. Vandenbussche (Co-editor). Language Contact: An International Handbook, Vol. 1. -
Salmons (Co-editor), J., and P. Honeybone (Co-editor). The Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology. -
Salmons (Co-editor), J., E. Raimy (Co-editor), and T. Purnell (Co-editor). Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State. -
Seifert, L. W. J., M. Louden (Co-editor), J. Salmons (Co-editor), and H. Martin (Co-editor). A Word Atlas of Pennsylvania German.
