Peter Hugoe Matthews

{{Short description|British linguist and historian of linguistics}}

{{about|the English linguist|the New Zealand politician|P. H. Matthews}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Peter Hugoe Matthews, FBA (10 March 1934 – 7 April 2023) was a British linguist and historian of linguistics. He was a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and formerly Professor and Head of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge (1980–2001). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1985.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/peter-matthews-FBA/|title=Professor Peter Matthews FBA}}

Matthews is perhaps best known for his writings on linguistic morphology. He published two monographs on the subject.

Matthews was an early follower of Noam Chomsky, but lost enthusiasm for the "generative enterprise" during the 1960s. He described the Chomskyan revolution as "the Best Thing that has happened to linguistics in the past 2500 years" (with his tongue squarely in his cheek, of course).{{cite book |last1=Matthews |first1=Peter H |title=Grammatical theory in the United States: From Bloomfield to Chomsky |date=1993 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |page=1}} But he also wrote that dominance of various Chomskyan ideas is not "a Good Thing, and I would not be disappointed if my study of their origins were to lead more scholars to question them".{{cite book |last1=Matthews |first1=Peter H |title=Grammatical theory in the United States: From Bloomfield to Chomsky |date=1993 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |page=3}}

Peter Hugoe Matthews died on 7 April 2023, at the age of 89.{{cite web |title=In memoriam Professor P.H. Matthews (1934–2023) |url=https://philsoc.org.uk/News |website=The Philological Society |access-date=11 September 2023 |date=14 April 2023}}