The Structure of the Program

Coursework - To acquire a basic grounding in the core areas of the field, students must complete the following courses, normally in their first two years of residence:

Linguistics 112/212 (Syntactic Theory I/Syntactic Theory II)
Linguistics 115/215 (Phonological Theory I/Phonological Theory II)
Linguistics 116/*216 (Semantic Theory I/*Semantic Theory II)

Linguistics 117r (Linguistics Field Methods)

Linguistics 118 (formerly 224; Historical and Comparative Linguistics)

[*216 is not required of students concentrating in Historical Linguistics]

In addition, second- and third-year students are required to enroll in Linguistics 241r (Practicum in Linguistics).

There is also a language requirement, which is described separately below. Course requirements are flexibly enforced. Students with a substantial background in one or more areas of linguistics may substitute more advanced courses for those listed above, with the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS). Only rarely are course requirements waived completely.

Advising - First-year students are advised by the DGS until they choose a major field (see below), at which time they also choose a major advisor from the regular departmental faculty. It is expected that students will select their major field and their major advisor by the end of the second year. Thereafter, progress toward completion of the Ph.D. requirements continues to be monitored by the DGS, but primary responsibility for overseeing study in the major field shifts to the major advisor. Students may change their major advisor at any time. By the end of the second year they should also select a co-advisor, who serves as a second advisor and faculty mentor.

Major and Minor Fields - Students choose a major and a minor field during their first year. The major field is typically a large subarea of linguistics, such as phonology, syntax, semantics, or historical linguistics. The minor field may either be another major subarea or a more specific one (e.g., Germanic syntax, psycholinguistics, Greek historical grammar). Competence in the major field is demonstrated by a) advanced coursework, as determined in consultation with the major advisor; b) submission of an original research paper of publishable quality (see below); and c), optionally, in certain fields, a special written examination. Competence in the minor field is demonstrated by satisfactory performance in three courses above the introductory level, or in two courses with submission of a research paper.

Research Papers Requirement ("Generals") - In lieu of a formal admission to candidacy examination ("general exam"), students are required to submit and orally defend two publishable research papers, preferably by the end of the third year. One of the two papers should be in the area of the declared major field, and the other should be in a different area of linguistics, which may, but need not be, the same as the minor field. If the second paper is in the area of the minor field, it may count in place of a third course in the minor field (see above).

Language Requirement - The department's language requirement has two components:

(1) Reading knowledge of two languages of scholarship other than English. Native speakers of qualifying languages may count their native language for this purpose. Non-native speakers may satisfy the requirement by completing a second-year language course at the university level, or by passing a one-hour departmental reading exam (dictionary permitted).

(2) Knowledge of the structure of a non-Indo-European language. This requirement may be met by taking a "structure" course (e.g., Linguistics 171, Structure of Chinese), a course in linguistic typology, or a second semester of Linguistics 117r (Linguistic Field Methods). Practical reading and/or speaking knowledge cannot be used to satisfy this requirement.

Satisfactory Progress - A B+ average must be maintained in each year of graduate study. Grades below B- cannot be counted toward departmental requirements; two grades below B- in required courses may result in termination of candidacy. Ordinarily, a grade of Incomplete can only be converted into a letter grade if the work is made up before the end of the following term. No grade of Incomplete can be used to satisfy a departmental requirement.

All requirements, including the research papers, should ideally be completed by the end of the third year, but in no case later than the end of the fourth. The dissertation prospectus (see below) is also due by the end of the fourth year. Failure to meet program requirements in timely fashion may result in termination of candidacy.

A.M. Degree - Graduate students who have completed two years of residence and who have fulfilled all the course requirements and language requirements for the Ph.D. may upon petition receive an A.M. degree.

The Dissertation

Dissertation Prospectus - A prospectus of the Ph.D. dissertation must be submitted to the department by the end of the fourth year. The prospectus should contain a summary (in approximately ten pages) of the goals and methodology of the dissertation research, a bibliography of relevant literature, and a schedule for progress toward completion.

Committee - As part of the prospectus submission procedure, students nominate a three-person committee to serve as readers of the completed dissertation. Final membership of the dissertation committee is subject to departmental approval. The head of the committee, if not already the major advisor, assumes this role as soon as the prospectus is approved. Students are urged to maintain regular communication with all three members of the dissertation committee during the dissertation-writing process.

Dissertation Defense - Acceptance of a Ph.D. dissertation requires a successful public defense, which should take place one to three months before the Registrar's due date for final submission of the dissertation. Sufficient time must be allowed to permit any required corrections or revisions, as well as to have the dissertation bound.

Secondary Fields in Linguistics

The Department of Linguistics offers two secondary fields, one in Historical Linguistics and the other in Linguistic Theory.

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

1. Historical linguistics, the study of how languages change over time, subsumes both the general study of language change and the history of specific languages and language families. The intellectual spectrum thus defined bridges part of the gap between linguistic theory and the areas traditionally known as “philology.” At Harvard, the more theoretical aspects of historical linguistics are covered in courses offered by the Department of Linguistics, while courses dealing with the historical linguistics of specific languages are offered both by the Department of Linguistics and the relevant language departments. In practice, many graduate students in the Classics, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and other language-centered departments take courses in historical linguistics as part of their ordinary preparation for the Ph.D. The availability of a secondary field in Historical Linguistics allows such students to have their work in linguistics officially recognized.

2. Requirement: four half-courses, to be distributed as follows:

a) Linguistics 118 (Historical and Comparative Linguistics)

b) three other courses in Linguistics or cross-listed with Linguistics, two of which must be chosen from the following:

Linguistics 122 (Introduction to Indo-European)
Linguistics 123 (Intermediate Indo-European)
Linguistics 168 (Introduction to Germanic Linguistics)
Linguistics 176 (History and Pre-history of the Japanese Language)
Linguistics 220ar (Advanced Indo-European)
Linguistics 221r (Indo-European Workshop)
Linguistics 247 (Topics in Germanic Linguistics)
Linguistics 225a (Introduction to Hittite)
Linguistics 250 (Old Church Slavonic)
Linguistics 252 (Comparative Slavic Linguistics)
Greek 134 (The Language of Homer)
Latin 134 (Archaic Latin)
Semitic Philology 140 (Introduction to the Comparative Study of Semitic Languages)
Semitic Philology 200r (Comparative Semitic Grammar: Seminar)
Slavic 125 (Modern Russian in Historical Perspective)

Other courses with a historical linguistic focus may be added to this list at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies in Linguistics.

3. Historical linguistics is one of the Department’s traditional areas of strength, with two dedicated faculty positions (Jasanoff and Rau) and part of a third (Flier). Linguistics 108 and 118 are offered in alternating years. Other courses offered in b) are Linguistics 122, Linguistics 220r, Linguistics 221r, Linguistics 247, Linguistics 250, and Linguistics 252.

4. The contact person is the Director of Graduate Studies in Linguistics.

LINGUISTIC THEORY

1. Linguistic theory, the core of the modern field of linguistics, seeks to characterize the linguistic knowledge that normal human beings acquire in the course of mastering their native language between the ages of one and five. Studied as an internalized formal system, language is a source of insight into a wide range of human pursuits and abilities, some of them traditionally approached through the humanities, others through the social sciences, and others through the behavioral and natural sciences. The major divisions of linguistic theory are syntax, the study of sentence structure; phonology, the study of sounds and sound systems; morphology, the study of word structure; and semantics; the study of meaning. Courses in these areas regularly draw students from other Harvard departments, especially Psychology, Philosophy, and other departments associated with the Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative. The secondary field in Linguistic Theory allows such students to receive official recognition for their linguistics coursework.

2. Requirement: four half-courses, to be distributed as follows:

a) at least one of the following:

Linguistics 112 (Syntactic Theory I)

Linguistics 114 (Morphological Theory)
Linguistics 115 (Phonological Theory I)
Linguistics 116 (Semantic Theory I)

b) three other courses in Linguistics, two of which must be chosen from the following:

Linguistics 117r (Linguistic Field Methods)

Linguistics 132 (Psychosemantics)

Linguistics 146 (Syntax and Processing)
Linguistics 148 (Language Universals)
Linguistics 152 (Prosody and Intonation)
Linguistics 171 (Structure of Chinese)
Linguistics 174 (Tense and Aspect in Japanese)
Linguistics 175 (Structure of Japanese)
Linguistics 202r (Advanced Syntax)
Linguistics 204r (Topics in Syntax)
Linguistics 205r (The Syntax-Semantics Interface)
Linguistics 206r (Syntactic Structure and Argument Structure)

Linguistics 207r (Topics in Semantics)

Linguistics 212 (Syntactic Theory II)

Linguistics 114 (Morphological Theory; formerly Linguistics 214)

Linguistics 215 (Phonological Theory II)

Linguistics 216 (Semantic Theory II)

Linguistics 219 (Advanced Phonology)

Other courses with a theoretical focus, including courses in other departments cross-listed with Linguistics, may be added to this list at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies in Linguistics.

3. Although Linguistics has no official “tracks” toward the Ph.D., linguistic theory is the Department’s main intellectual focus, with three tenured and two untenured colleagues (Chierchia, Huang, Polinsky, Charnavel, Ryan) working in this area. Of the four courses in a), three (Linguistics 112, Linguistics 115, and Linguistics 116) are offered every year; Linguistics 114 is offered in alternate years.

4. The contact person is the Director of Graduate Studies in Linguistics.

Admission and Financial Aid

Requirements for admission are flexible. Preference is normally given to candidates with a previous background in linguistics, but students with a mature interest in the field and a strong language background are encouraged to apply as well. GRE and TOEFL scores are required of all applicants, and are valid if taken within the last 5 years.

All new graduate students in Linguistics receive a five-year support package, either from GSAS, or from an outside funding source (e.g., the National Science Foundation), or from a combination of the two. The standard GSAS package provides sufficient funds to make teaching unnecessary in the first and second years. Support in the third and fourth years takes the form of teaching fellowships. The department regards teaching as an essential part of the Ph.D. program. Courses open to participation by teaching fellows include undergraduate tutorials, beginning-level linguistic theory courses, and large-enrollment undergraduate courses. Full support is again provided in the dissertation-completion year, freeing the student of teaching obligations. Stipends are provided for summer research in the first four years.

Inquiries regarding admission and financial aid should be directed to the Admissions Office, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke Center 350, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. We encourage online submission of the application. See www.gsas.harvard.edu.

Recent Ph.D. Dissertation Titles

The Accusative and Infinitive Construction in Latin: an Integrated Approach on Linguicide

Ablative and Instrumental in Hittite

Alternatives and exhaustification: Non-Interrogative Uses of Chinese wh-words

An Approach to the Metrical Behavior of Old English Verbs

Armenian Phonology

Bardi Verb Morphology in Historical Perspective

Caland's Law and the Caland System

Canadian French Vowel Harmony

Case Marking and Grammatical Relations in Polynesian

Case, Referentiality and Phrase Structure

Clause Structure and Verb Syntax in Scandinavian and English

Cognitive Processing of Action Words and Grammatical Category in Parkinson’s Disease

A Comparative Study of Accent in the Five Nations Iroquoian Languages

On Complementation Icelandic

Default Case Marking in Japanese

Deep vs. Shallow Processing and Cue Weighting in the Acquisition of Second Language Vowel Categories

Delaware Verbal Morphology: A Descriptive and Comparative Study

Dependencies: A Study of Anaphoricity and Scrambling

A Derivational Program in Syntactic Theory

Ditransitive Structures and the (Anti-) Locality Principle

The Effect of Age on Parameter Resetting: Arabic-speaking Children and Adults' Acquisition of English Relative Clause Structure as Assessed through Interlanguage Data and a Universal Constraint

Elliptical Predicated Constructions in Mandarin

The Extant Icelandic Translations from Middle English

Extraction Rules in Icelandic

A Feature-Relativized Shortest Move Requirement

Finiteness, Case and Clausal Architecture

Focus in Kikuyu and Universal Grammar

Focusing on Negative Concord and Negative Polarity: Variations and Relations

Grammatical and Discourse Properties of the Imperative Subject in English

Grammatical Relations in Modern Georgian

Hiatus in Modern Greek

Hungarian Generative Phonology

Indo-European Denominative Verbs in -nu-

Indo-European Origins of the Nasal Inchoative Class in Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic

Investigations in a Simplified Bracketed Grid Approach to Metrical Structure

Indo-European Verbal Formations in *-d-

Indo-European Origins of the Nasal Inchoative Class in Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic

The Influence of Spanish on the Numeral System of Tz´utujil Maya

An Integrated Model of the Phonology and Syntax of Celtic Mutations

The Interaction of Verb Semantics and Functional Features in Korean Syntax

Investigations in a Simplified Bracketed Grid Approach to Metrical Structure

Issues in Turkish Syntax

Jacaltec Syntax: a Study of Complex Sentences

The Language of the Early English Laws

Lexical Rules in Syntax: A Case Study of V-Concatenation in Japanese

Linguistic Practice, Social Identity, and Ideology: Mandarin Variation in a Taipei County High School

Logical Predicates and Idiolect Variation in English

Morphology and Universals in Syntactic Change: Evidence from Medieval and Modern Greek

The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Capeverdean Creole

Multiple Dominance in Syntax

No “Small” Task: Analyzing Sociolinguistic Variation among an African-American Family in a Small Southern Town

The Northwest Caucasian Languages: A Phonological Survey

The Objective Nominative

Ojibwe Morphology

Phasing in Full Interpretation

The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean

Phonological Implications of Aphasic Speech

Referential-access Dependency in Penobscot

Reflexive-middle Constructions and Verb Raising in Telugu

Relativization and Ellipsis

The Role of Alternatives and Strength in Grammar

The Structure of Phonological Theory

The Structure of Pronoun Incorporation in the Mayan Verbal Complex

Studies in Ancient Anatolian Language and Culture

Studies in the Classical Armenian Nominal System

Studies in the Comparative Syntax of the Oldest Indo-Iranian

Studies n some Forms of the Genitive Singular in Indo-European

Studies in Japanese Prosody

Studies in the Language of Three Northumbrian Poems

Studies in Penutian, I.California. 1. The Structure of an Etymology

Studies in the Prosody of Plautine Latin

Symmetries in Coordination

Syntactic Deviance in the Poetry of E.E. Cummings: A Stylistic Investigation

The Syntax of Anatolian Pronomial Clitics

The Syntax of Causative Constructions

The Syntax of Negation in Spanish

Syntax, Time, and the Experience of Musical Meaning

Target-Alpha: A Unified Theory of Structure Building and Movement

Targets and Syntactic Change

Tense and Complementizer Feature-Checking

A Theory of Assimilation with Special references to Old Icelandic Phonology

Topics at the PF Interface of Turkish

Topics in French Functional Syntax

Topics in Indo-European Personal Pronouns

Transformations Across Components

“Vessel Determinatives” in the Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic System: the Relationship Between Cultural Artefacts and the Mind

Department of Linguistics

Harvard University