Joshua Booth

RESEARCH

A current doctoral candidate, I am a theoretical phonologist with a special interest in Germanic phonology, in particular issues of prosodic structure. I am interested in the historical development of Germanic, as well as the synchronic structure of both present and past stages of these languages. However, as a research assistant in the Language and Brain Laboratory, my research interests additionally include experimental psycholinguistics, again focusing on questions of processing phonological representations and morphological complexity. My DPhil thesis, The Phonological Structure of Middle High German, aims to provide an account of the development of the phonological system of German from the mediaeval to the modern period, with questions of prosodic structure of particular interest, such as quantity, foot structure and lexical stress. I am currently investigating the prosodic representation of simple and special clitics in Middle High German. My earlier MPhil research examined the impact of Romance loan words on the Middle High German stress system. 

PUBLICATIONS

ARTICLES

• Booth, Joshua & Aditi Lahiri. [In press]. Foot Structure in Germanic. In the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press.
• Booth, Joshua. 2023. Open syllable lengthening and diphthongisation in Upper Middle High German: Evidence from verse. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 26: 5. DOI: 10.1007/s10828-023-09145-3
• Booth, Joshua J. 2023. Rethinking the metre of Parzival: Iambic verse for a trochaic language. Transactions of the Philological Society. DOI: 10.1111/TRPS.12257

CONFERENCE TALKS

• Booth, Joshua. 2022. ‘The Persistence of the Germanic Foot in Middle High German’. Presented at the 25th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, 1st–5th August 2022. University of Oxford.
• Booth, Joshua. 2022. ‘Vowel quantity and syllable weight in German: A reanalysis’. Presented at the 29th Manchester Phonology Meeting, 25th–27th May 2022. University of Manchester.
• Booth, Joshua. 2021. ‘Metre in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival: a reanalysis’. Presented at the Virtual Colloquium in Germanic Linguistics for Postgraduate Research Students and Early Career Researchers, 12th-13th January 2021. University of Sheffield.

CONFERENCE POSTERS

• Booth, Joshua. 2022. ‘The prosodic representation of Verschmelzungsformen in Middle High German’. Presented at the 25th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, 1st–5th August 2022. University of Oxford.

MPHIL THESIS

• Booth, Joshua. 2020. The metrical treatment of Romance loan words in Middle High German and its impact on the native word prosodic system. Thesis (MPhil), University of Oxford, Oxford.

TEACHING

TUTOR | Undergraduate Prelims General Linguistics | University of Oxford, 2022–2023

• Tutorial teaching for a pair of first-year undergraduates, focusing on General Linguistics and involving the discussion of weekly termtime essays.
• Comprises two tutorials each in ’Foundations’, ’Historical Linguistics’, ’Sociolinguistics’ and ’Psycholinguistics’.

TUTOR | Graduate Foundations: Phonology | University of Oxford, 2020–2023

• For three years, I have taught the weekly practical class supporting the obligatory lecture series introducing new master’s students to phonology.
• Involves marking and providing feedback on 25–30 students’ weekly problem sheets and reviewing these in a weekly seminar.

TUTOR | Graduate B Option: Phonetics & Phonology | University of Oxford, 2020–2023

• The equivalent class to the above for master’s students taking an options paper in Phonetics & Phonology, focusing on advanced phonology.

LECTURE SERIES | Historical Germanic Phonology & Morphology (with Prof. Aditi Lahiri) | University of Oxford, 2021–2022

• Wrote and delivered three of six lectures, directed at graduate students.
• Topics included ’IE > Gmc > WGmc > OHG’, ’The Gmc Foot’ and ’High Vowel Deletion’.