Salmons received his
BA in
Philosophy from the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte 1978, and his
PhD in
Germanic Linguistics from the
University of Texas at Austin in 1984. His dissertation supervisor was
Edgar C. Polomé. He subsequently served as Assistant Professor (1985-1991) and Associate Professor (1991-1995) of
German and
Linguistics at
Purdue University. Since 1995, Salmons has served as Associate Professor (1995-1997) and Professor (1997-2017) of German and Professor of Language Sciences (2017-) at the
University of Wisconsin – Madison. Salmons specializes in
Germanic linguistics and works increasingly on
Algonquian languages. He primarily researches
language change and linguistic theory, particularly sound systems. Salmons is the author numerous monographs, including
A History of German (2018), and he is co-editor with
Patrick Honeybone of the
Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology (2015). Salmons is married to linguist
Monica Macaulay. == Honors and awards ==