Global Arc

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

Junior Independent Work requires students to complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. The work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the semester. See below for details on works-in-progress submissions and due dates.

Junior Independent Work requires students to complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. The work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the semester. See below for details on works-in-progress submissions and due dates. This course provides a venue for a second term of Junior Independent Work and, as such,  can only be taken after successful completion of the department's Junior Independent Work (398).

Structured course with regular group meetings that help students complete a semester-long paper or project individually to fulfill the JIW requirement.

When examining the sounds of language, consonants and vowels receive the bulk of the attention. However, above these segments lives a parallel world called 'spoken language prosody.' Such phenomena include stress, rhythm, intonation, tone, phrasing, and more. In this course, you will be trained in how to hear contrasts in prosody, learn how to transcribe these contrasts, learn how to dissect the inner components using the latest linguistic phonetics software, and analyze these contrasts within a language's grammar. This course will involve a mix of lectures, intensive in-class and at-home problem sets, and your own data collection.

There are more than 300 different sign languages around the world. Each Spanish-speaking country has its own sign language. Deaf people in the UK and US might share the same written language, but their sign languages come from different language families. Some sign languages were developed recently, giving linguists an unprecedented opportunity to study how a language emerges. This course explores different sign languages and how they have been shaped by social, cultural, and political factors. It also examines how studying different perspectives on sign language may inform linguistics, disability studies, and other areas of study.

This course is a high-altitude exploration of the grammar of natural human languages. We will examine how the small(er) building blocks of language--morphemes, words, and phrases--behave across dialogues and monologues. What new patterns emerge when grammar operates beyond the sentence? How do language structures vary across genres and why? What counts as an obligatory rule of language, and how do speakers creatively bend the rules? Special attention is given to spoken texts in non-Indo-European languages, expanding our knowledge of linguistic diversity and pushing us to rethink even very familiar grammatical systems.

Junior Independent Work requires students to complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. The work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the semester. See below for details on works-in-progress submissions and due dates.

Empirical and theoretical research is at the core of linguistic work. The primary goal of independent work in linguistics is for you to learn how to understand, conduct, and communicate research. LIN majors will complete LIN 498 in the fall (graded P/D/F) and LIN 499 (letter graded) in the spring. In the fall, seniors submit a prospectus (week nine) and a thesis progress summary (Dean's Date). Presentations include a prospectus defense and participation in our monthly independent work gatherings for majors. Students must receive a passing grade in LIN 498 to enroll in LIN 499.