Author of ‘The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics’ is described as an inspiring teacher and great scholar

An Emeritus Professor of St John’s College – ‘one of the most distinguished British linguists of his generation’ – has been remembered following his death at the age of 89.

Professor Peter Hugoe Matthews FBA died at his home in Cambridge on 7 April after a long period of illness. An alumnus of St John’s, where he studied Classics and later Italian and Linguistics, he had been a Fellow of the College since 1980, when he returned to Cambridge as the University’s first prestigious Chair of Linguistics. He remained in post until he retired in 2001, when he also relinquished his role as Praelector of St John’s, held since 1987.

From 1992 to 1996 he was President of The Philological Society – the UK’s oldest learned society devoted to the study of languages and linguistics – and was more recently Vice President, until health problems prevented his active participation.

An inspiring teacher as well as a great scholar, Professor Matthews was the author of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (first edition 1997, third edition 2014) – an authoritative and invaluable reference source for students and teachers of language-related courses. His 1981 book Syntax (Cambridge University Press) also introduced generations of students to the basic concepts of the study of sentence structure.

Publishing as P.H. Matthews, his final work What Graeco-Roman Grammar was About was published in 2019.

Born in Devon in 1934, Professor Matthews held positions at Bangor University and the University of Reading before moving back to Cambridge in 1980. He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1985, awarded the DLitt degree in 1988 and was appointed an Honorary Member of the Linguistic Society of America in 1994. From 1970-1979 he was Editor of the Journal of Linguistics.

His many other publications include the influential Inflectional Morphology (1972), Morphology (second edition, 1991), Generative Grammar and Linguistic Competence (1979), Grammatical Theory in the United States from Bloomfield to Chomsky (1993), The Positions of Adjectives in English (2015), Syntactic Relations: A Critical Survey (2007), Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction (2003), and A Short History of Structural Linguistics (2001).

Professor Geoffrey Horrocks, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Philology and Fellow of St John’s, said: “Peter was one of the most distinguished British linguists of his generation who played a key role in securing the place of linguistics in the UK through his groundbreaking work at Bangor, Reading and finally Cambridge. As a linguist he knew his own mind and instinctively adopted a sceptical stance towards the work of fashionable theorists who seemed to him to have pushed their ideas too far.

“Focusing on what was important for him, his research proved to be instrumental in reviving international interest in morphological theory – the study of word structure – at a time when many had casually dismissed the subject as one of marginal interest. His research in later years focused chiefly on the importance of understanding the history of linguistic thought as a vital precaution against much ill-informed reinvention of the wheel.

“Above all, he sought consistently to demystify a subject notorious for its technical jargon not only through the clarity of his own technical writing in fields such as morphology and syntax but also, towards the end of his career, the compilation of a down-to-earth and widely appreciated Dictionary of Linguistics.

“Peter was one of the most active supporters of The Philological Society of London and inter alia served with distinction during his tenure as President.

“He was a kind man and cared a lot about the College.”

Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner, Executive Director of The Woolf Institute and Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, organised two linguistic conferences with the help of Professor Matthews in 2011 and 2014 when she was a College Teaching Associate at St John’s. The conferences led to the publication of two volumes co-edited by Dr Wagner, Scribes as Agents of Language Change and Merchants of Innovation: The Languages of Traders, dedicated to her friend and colleague.

She said: “Peter was instrumental in getting the funding for the conferences, which were well-received. He attended and was essentially the guest of honour, but he was never a person to grandstand or put himself first, he always listened.

“He was really interested in nurturing young talent. Most people who study linguistics will have a copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics on their shelves. Over the course of 17 years he kept revising it to keep it up to date. Dictionaries don’t get you the glory, they’re not very popular for modern scholars to write, but they’re absolutely crucial for anyone setting out in linguistics because you need these sorts of sources to get the basics.

“It was so important to him to support younger scholars and learners.”

Although Professor Matthews suffered health issues in recent years, he still attended seminars and conferences and was a keen cyclist, often turning up with his bike helmet under his arm.

“He was a great scholar and very jolly, he would come to dinners with us teaching associates when we were at College,” added Dr Wagner. “If we had guests he would help entertain them and talk to them. He had a very fine sense of humour and was a really wonderful colleague.”

Details of the funeral service for Professor Matthews will be available in due course.

Published: 28/4/2023

Back to College News

​