Pavel Iosad

Senior Lecturer

  • Linguistics and English Language
  • School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Contact details

Address

Street

Room 3.08, Dugald Stewart Building

City
3 Charles Street, Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9AD

Availability

Biography

Background

I graduated from the theoretical and applied linguistics programme at Moscow State University in my native Russia in 2007 and completed doctoral study at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, University of Tromsø, Norway, with a thesis on the sound patterns of Welsh and Breton. Before coming to Edinburgh I held a lectureship at the University of Ulster. I was Lecturer in Theoretical Phonology from 2013, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2019.

Responsibilities & affiliations

I am currently Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of PPLS. Please use PPLS.UG.Director@ed.ac.uk if your query is relevant to that role.

I am affiliated to the Phonetics and Phonology, Language Variation and Change, and English Language Research Groups; I am also an affiliate of the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics. In addition, I am co-convenor of the Celtic Linguistics Reading Group.

Undergraduate teaching

In 2020/2021, I teach on the following courses:

  • Linguistics and English Language 1A (pre-Honours). I am responsible, with Graeme Trousdale, for the data analysis component of the course.
  • LEL2D: Cross-Linguistic Variation: Limits and Theories (pre-Honours). I teach the phonology block and parts of the language variation and universals block, and am also the course organizer;
  • Phonological Theory (Honours)
  • Historical Linguistics (Honours)
  • I also offer a Guided Research seminar entitled ‘What’s Where When Why: Linguistic Diversity, Typology and Historical Linguistics’ in both semesters of 2020/2021

Apart from my guidance and feedback hour, you can book a meeting via this page.

Postgraduate teaching

In 2020/2021, I teach on the following courses:

  • Phonological Theory
  • Historical Linguistics
  • I also offer a Guided Research seminar entitled ‘What’s Where When Why: Linguistic Diversity, Typology and Historical Linguistics’ in both semesters of 2020/2021

Apart from my guidance and feedback hour, you can book a meeting via this page.

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I am interested in enquiries from prospective students with interests in the areas of theoretical and historical phonology. My main expertise is in Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic linguistics, but I am more than happy to entertain proposals that go beyond these languages.

Current PhD students supervised

  • Jakub Musil: Vowel insertion in the Gaelic languages
  • Riccardo Battilani: Vowel length in the Romance varieties of Northern Italy

Past PhD students supervised

  • Jade Jørgen Sandstedt: ‘Feature specifications and contrast in vowel harmony: The orthography and phonology of Old Norwegian height harmony’
  • Christopher Lewin (Celtic & Scottish Studies): ‘Aspects of the historical phonology of Manx’

Research summary

Theoretical phonology, phonological interfaces, historical phonology, Celtic languages, Germanic languages

Current research interests

My main interests are in phonological theory (particularly theories of phonological representation and phonological interfaces) and in historical linguistics (historical phonology, language variation and change, and language contact). Most of my work focuses on Celtic (particularly Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic) and Germanic (particularly North Germanic) languages; I have also worked with Romance and Slavic.

Affiliated research centres

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