• Home
• People
• Research
• Graduate Program
• Undergraduate Program
• Course Information
• Events
• Visitors
• Groups
• Resources
• MITWPL

Graduate Program

Five Year PhD Program
Specialization in Syntax

Faculty

Noam Chomsky: Linguistic Theory, Syntax, Semantics, Philosophy of Language

Michel DeGraff: Syntax, Semantics, Creole Languages

Danny Fox: Syntax,Semantics

Sabine Iatridou: Syntax, Semantics

Shigeru Miyagawa: Japanese Syntax, Syntactic Theory

David Pesetsky: Theory of Syntax, Morphology, Language Acquisition, Russian Syntax

Norvin Richards: Syntax, Endangered Languages, Austronesian Languages

Kenneth Wexler: Language Acquisition, Syntax

Curriculum

Students in this program will fulfill all the normal requirements of the Linguistics Program. They will also take four additional courses, and participate in a research forum/discussion group on syntax and semantics.

Required Coures

• Syntactic Models (24.960)
  Investigation of the architecture of syntax from many points of view. Topics will include the history of generative research and its predecessors, and a variety of current approaches to problems in syntax, including LFG, HPSG, recent work in Minimalism, etc. To be offered every other year.
• More Advanced Syntax (24.955)
  A more in-depth investigation of various topics from 24.951-2 ("Advanced Syntax"), as well as several topics not covered in the first year.
• Linguistic Theory and [Language or Language Family] (e.g. 24.946)
  Shigeru Miyagawa already teaches one such course, namely 24.946 (Linguistic Theory and Japanese). A course of this kind, investigating in depth the syntactic properties of a particular language or language family, will be offered each year.
• One additional advanced course with some bearing on issues in syntax, e.g. a second semester of 24.956 (Topics in Syntax), another course from the Linguistic Theory and [Language or Language Family] series, 24.945 (Language Processing), 24.953 (Lexical Argument Structure and Syntax), or 24.979 (Topics in Semantics)

Reading Groups

All students in the program that have completed the first two years are expected to attend and actively participate in at least one (but ideally both) of Syntax Square and the Syntax-Semantics Reading Group (also known as the LF Reading Group), a weekly forum in which students give presentations on their own research and on recent literature about the syntax-semantics interface. The readings will be selected by the participants. Active participation is required for third year students, but is highly recommended also for fourth and fifth year students. Students should start attending in their third or fourth semester.