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The Department of Linguistics is home to one of the oldest and most distinguished linguis­tics programs in the United States. The study of linguistics at Harvard draws much of its strength from the unique range and depth of the University’s offerings in related fields, espe­cially ancient and modern languages. Students are encouraged to take advantage of the full spectrum of Harvard’s resources in planning their schedules; they are also free to cross-register for linguistics and linguistics-related courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech­nology. While all PhD candidates are expected to acquire a solid background in contemporary linguistic theory, the department places great emphasis on the inseparability of good theo­retical work and detailed empirical research, and on the interrelatedness of diachronic and synchronic approaches to the study of linguistic phenomena.

Since the department is relatively small, discussion among faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates is ongoing and informal. Special workshops funded by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, together with frequent departmentally sponsored lectures and seminars, bring an unusually large number of outside speakers to Harvard every year. Widener Library contains a matchless linguistic and philological collection, supple­mented by a special non-circulating collection accessible only to linguistics students and faculty.

Further information regarding depart­mental courses, faculty, and facilities can be obtained from the Department of Linguis­tics, Boylston Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 (telephone: 617-495-4054; fax: 617-496-4447), or by visiting the departmental website. 

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 scores are required of all applicants.

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 PhD program. Courses open to participation by teaching fellows include undergraduate tutorials, beginning-level linguistic theory courses, and large-enrollment undergraduate courses such as Social Analysis 34 (Knowledge of Language). 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 two 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. 

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 112a (Introduction to Syntactic Theory) and 112b (Intermediate Syntax)
Linguistics 115a (Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology) and 115b (Intermediate Phonology)
Linguistics 116a (Introduction to Semantics)
Linguistics 117r (Linguistic Field Methods)
Linguistics 224 (Historical and Comparative 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. Thereafter, progress toward completion of the PhD 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 Paper Requirement — 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.

AM Degree — Graduate students who have completed two years of residence and who have fulfilled all the course requirements and language requirements for the PhD may upon petition receive an AM degree.

The Dissertation

Dissertation Prospectus — A prospectus of the PhD 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 PhD 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.

Recent PhD Dissertation Titles

“Bardi Verb Morphology in Historical Perspective”

“Canadian French Vowel Harmony”

“Case, Referentiality, and Phrase Structure”

“Ditransitive Structures and the (Anti-)Locality Principle”

“Elliptical Predicated Constructions in Mandarin”

“Finiteness, Case and Clausal Architecture”

“Focusing on Negative Concord and Negative Polarity: Variations and Relations”

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

“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”

“Multiple Dominance in Syntax”

“Referential-access Dependency in Penobscot”

“Relativization and Ellipsis”

“Studies in Japanese Prosody”

“Studies in the Language of Three Northumbrian Poems”

“Studies in Ancient Anatolian Language and Culture”

“Symmetries in Coordination”

“The Interaction of Verb Semantics and Functional Features in Korean Syntax”

“The Syntax of Negation in Spanish”

Faculty of the Department of Linguistics 2007-08

Jasanoff, Jay H., Diebold Professor of Indo-European Linguistics and Philology. Chair. PhD 1968, Harvard University.

Interests: Indo-European and general historical linguistics; linguistics of individual Indo-European branches (Germanic, Celtic, Indo-Iranian, Anatolian, Tocharian, Italic, etc.).

Selected Works: “From reduplication to ablaut: the class VII strong verbs of Northwest Ger­manic,” to appear in Historische Sprachforsc­hung (2008); “The origin of the Latin gerund and gerundive: a new proposal,” Festschrift for Michael Flier (2008); “Balto-Slavic accentua­tion: telling news from noise,” Baltistica 39 (2005), 171-177; “Plus ça change. . . Lach­mann’s Law in Latin,” in J. H. W. Penney, ed.,
Indo-European Perspectives: Studies in Honour of Anna Morpurgo Davies (Oxford and New York, 2004), 405-416; Hittite and the Indo-European Verb (Oxford, 2003).

Boeckx, Cedric, Associate Professor of Linguis­tics. PhD 2001, University of Connecticut.

Interests: Linguistics theory and the architec­ture of grammar; biolinguistics; theoretical and comparative syntax; Romance and Germanic syntax.

Selected Works: Understanding Minimalist Syntax: Lessons from Locality in Long-distance Dependencies, 2007, Blackwell. Aspects of the Syntax of Agreement, to appear, London: Routledge. Linguistic minimalism: Origins, Concepts, Methods, and Aims. 2006. New York: Oxford University Press. Islands and Chains (2003), Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Multiple Wh-fronting (ed. with K. Grohmann)(2003), Amsterdam: John Benjamins; “Scope Recon­struction and A-movement” (2001); Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19, 503-548; “Quirky Agreement” (2000), Studia Linguis­tica 54, 451-480.

Chierchia, Gennaro, Haas Foundations Professor of Linguistics. PhD 1984, University of Massachusetts.

Interests: Semantics, the syntax/semantics mapping, pragmatics, philosophy of language, The interface of semantics with language development, language pathology, and language processing.

Selected Works: “(In)Definites, Locality, and Intentional Identity” in G. Carlson and F. J. Pelletier, eds., Reference and Quantification: The Partee Effect (Stanford, 2006); “Scalar Implicatures, Polarity Phenomena and the Syntax/Pragmatics Interface” in A. Belletti, ed., Structures and Beyond (Oxford and New York, 2004); “Backwards vs. Forward Anaphora: Reconstruction in Child Language”, Language Acquisition, 8.2 (1999/2000), 129-170; “Reference to Kinds across Languages” (with M. T. Guasti), Natural Language Semantics 6 (1998), 339-405; Dynamics of Meaning. Anaphora, Presupposition and the Theory of Grammar, Chicago and London, 1995).

Flier, Michael S., Oleksandr Potebnja Professor of Ukrainian Philology. PhD 1968, University of California, Berkeley.

Interests: Slavic linguistics, semiotics of medi­eval East Slavic culture.

Selected Works: “The Fourth Palatalization of Velars in Ukrainian: The Southwestern Dialects,” in Alan J. Nussbaum, ed., Verba Docenti. Studies in Historical and Indo-Euro­pean Linguistics Presented to Jay H. Jasanoff by Students, Colleagues, and Friends (Ann Arbor and New York, 2007), 73-82; “Catching the Drift of Dissimilative Jakan’e,” in Michael S. Flier et al., eds., In Memoriam Henrik Birnbaum (Bloomington, 2006), 129–148; “Innovation in the East Slavic Non-Past: The Case of Belarusian First-Person Plural idom,” in Alan Timberlake, ed., American Contribu­tions to the Thirteenth International Congress of Slavists, Ljubljana, 2003. Vol. 1: Linguistics (Bloomington, 2003), 65–77; “Surzhyk: The Rules of Engagement,” in Zvi Gitelman et al., eds., Cultures and Nations of Central and Eastern Europe: Essays in Honor of Roman Szporluk (Cambridge, 2000), 113–36.

Huang, C.-T. James, Professor of Linguistics. Director of Graduate Studies. PhD 1982, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Interests: Syntactic theory, syntactic-semantics interface, Chinese linguistics.

Selected Works: “The distribution of nega­tive NPs and some typological correlates,” in A. Simpson an A. Li (eds.) Functional Structure(s), Form and Interpretation, Rout-ledge (2003); “Distributivity and Reflexivity,” in Sze-wing Tang and Luther Liu (eds.) The Formal Way to Chinese Languages, CSLI and Cambridge University Press (2002); Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar (Garland, 1998); New Horizons in Chinese Linguistics (with Y.-H. Audrey Li, Kluwer, 1996); “Two Types of Donkey Sentences,” Natural Language Semantics (with Lisa Cheng, 1996); “Reconstruction and the Structure of VP” (Linguistic Inquiry, 1993).

Nevins, Andrew, Associate Professor of Linguis­tics. PhD 2004, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Interests: Morphology, the structure of the lexicon, phonology, experimental approaches to linguistics.

Selected Works: “The Representation of Third Person and its Consequences for Person-Case Effects,” to appear in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory; “Rule Application in Phonology” (with Morris Halle), to appear in Charles Cairns and Eric Raimy, eds., Contem­porary Architectures in Phonological Theory; “A Distributed Morphology Analysis of Present Tense Auxiliaries in Zamudio” (with Karlos Arregi), Euskalingua 9 (2006), 146-156; “Derivations without the Activity Condition,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology Working Papers in Linguistics 49 (2005); “Consonant Harmony in Karaim” (with Bert Vaux), Massa­chusetts Institute of Technology Working Papers in Linguistics 46 (2004).

Polinsky, Maria, Professor of Linguistics (on leave Fall 2008). PhD 1986, Institute for Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Interests: Language universals and their expla­nation; comparative syntactic theory; the expression of information structure in natural language; incomplete acquisition (heritage languages); Austronesian languages (esp. Mala­gasy, Maori) and languages of the Caucasus (esp. Tsez, Kabardian).

Selected Works: “Expanding the Scope of Control & Raising” (with Eric Potsdam), to appear in Syntax; “Gender under incomplete acquisition,” to appear in Heritage Language Journal 6 (2007); “Without Aspect,” to appear in Greville Corbett and Michael Noonan, eds., Case and Grammatical Relations (Oxford); “Subject Preference in Korean” (with Nayoung Kwon and Robert Kluender), in Donald Baumer, David Montero, and Michael Scanlon, eds., Proceedings of the 25th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (Somer­ville, 2006), 1-14; “Word class distinctions in an incomplete grammar,” in Dorit Ravid and Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, eds., Perspec­tives on Language and Language Development (Dordrecht, 2005), 419-436.

Rau, Jeremy, Associate Professor of Classics and Linguistics (on leave 2008-09). PhD 2003, Cornell University.

Interests: Greek and Latin historical linguistics; Homeric language; Indo-European languages and linguistics; Indo-Iranian linguistics.

Selected Works: “The Derivational History of PGmc. *wethru- ‘lamb’,” in Alan J. Nussbaum, ed., Verba Docenti. Studies in Historical and Indo-European Linguistics Presented to Jay H. Jasanoff by Students, Colleagues, and Friends (Ann Arbor and New York, 2007), 281-292; “The Greek Type nomas, -ados,” to appear in Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft; “The Origin of the Short-Vowel Inflection of the EU-Stems in Homer,” to appear in Glotta; “A Note on Mycenaean te-re-ja and the Athe­matic Inflection of the Contract Verbs,” to appear in Historische Sprachforschung; “PIE *woidu-/weidu- and its derivatives,” Die Sprache 40/2 (1998), 133-160.