The Joint Ph.D. Program in Slavic and Theoretical Linguistics

The purpose of the Joint Ph.D. Program in Slavic and Theoretical Linguistics is to train linguists who can both apply modern theories of linguistics to the analysis of the Slavic languages and apply data from the Slavic languages to the development of linguistic theory. In order to achieve these goals, students in the Joint Program take courses in both Slavic and theoretical linguistics each semester; students also take courses in Russian and other Slavic languages. The Slavic core courses are: The Morphosyntactic Structure of Russian (a two semester introduction to the generative analysis of Russian morphosyntax); The History of the Russian Language (a two semester course that begins with a basic introduction to Common Slavic and covers the history of Russian phonology, morphology, and syntax); Comparative Slavic Linguistics (one semester), and Old Russian texts (one semester).

In addition to Russian, which is the program's main focus, students normally study two other Slavic languages (Czech, Polish, and Serbian/Croatian are offered). The core courses in theoretical linguistics are: three levels of Syntax (elementary syntax in the Introductory course (Lin 213); Intermediate (generative) syntax, and Advanced (generative) syntax), Morphology, Phonology, and Linguistic Semantics. Students may also take the following courses, which are regularly offered in the Linguistics Program: Linguistic Universals and Language Diversity; Language, Mind, and Brain; From Word to Idiom to Grammar (Introduction to Construction Grammar), Lexical Semantics, Language Acquisition, Historical Linguistics, Problems in Indo-European Linguistics, The Chomskyan Revolution.

Contact Leonard Babby, Director of the Program in Linguistics at: babbylhprinceton.edu if you have questions. Applicants must have a sound knowledge of Russian, and be fluent in English.

For more information on requirements for the Ph.D. program, please visit the Graduate School Home Page.

Please note:  The Joint Ph.D. Program in Slavic and Theoretical Linguistics is being discontinued.