Concentrators
A concentration in linguistics requires approval of course plans from the Dean of the College.
Meet the Concentrators
Current
David Abugaber '14
Hi, all! I'm David Abugaber, a '14er raised in Mexico but now living in San Marcos, Texas. I am among the few, the proud, the independent concentrators in linguistics here at Princeton. My main interests are in language acquisition and sociolinguistics; I'm currently teaching English in South Korea, and plan to write my senior thesis on the interaction between Ixil Maya and Spanish in a Guatemalan mountain town called Nebaj. I am also pursuing a certificate in Latin American Studies, and have done summer internships in Guatemala and Brazil through Princeton's International Internship Program. I love to learn languages, and have studied Portuguese, Italian, and French at Princeton (although I hope to add a few more to the list!). Outside of class, I teach ESL and translate for Hispanic immigrant patients at the hospital north of campus. I'm also into classical guitar, meditation, all sorts of music, and Frist Late Meal chicken salad sandwiches.
Hi! I’m Sarah D’Antonio, a senior independent concentrator in linguistics from Garden City, NY. My favorite subfield of linguistics is forensic linguistics, which deals with language in a legal context. I first learned about it while studying abroad at Cambridge University in England the summer after my sophomore year. I love how forensic linguistics applies linguistics, psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines to law in order to help make society more just. Among other issues, forensic linguists analyze language evidence in court, look at cross-linguistic issues and how they can affect bilingual legal situations, and examine the language of statutes to determine true meaning. My first junior paper explored language affects on cognition and their implications in court, and my second analyzed ambiguity and vagueness in the recantation clause of the United States Perjury Statute. At Princeton, my other interests include Latin and music. I sing with the Princeton University Chapel Choir and was a member of the Princeton Tigerlilies. I am a proud member of the Linguistics Club. I’m also in Colonial Club and love getting involved in the intramural sports there.
Clayton Greenberg '13
Previous
Anna Tchetchetkine '12
Ian Wong '12
My name is Erik Zyman '12, and I'm from New York City. I'm an alumnus of Stuyvesant High School; a veteran of the National Spelling Bee and the National Vocabulary Championship; and president of the Princeton Linguistics Club. I'm independently concentrating in linguistics because I find fascinating the project of discovering how the extremely intricate system of knowledge we call language—which we control unconsciously and with almost no effort—works. Or, in other words, by what rules and principles it's governed.
I'm interested in syntax, information structure, morphology, semantics, and their interrelationships, and I also maintain interests in prosodic and typological issues. My JPs investigated phenomena in P'urhépecha, a genetically isolated agglutinating indigenous language of the state of Michoacán in central-western Mexico. My first JP sought to determine whether the language has split intransitivity; tentatively, the answer seems to be yes. The second tested the hypothesis that the language's rather free constituent order (all orders of S, V, and O are attested) could be explained with reference to information structure; it seems that, to a very great extent, it can. For my thesis, I'm testing the predictions of the Cinque hierarchy, and exploring other aspects of adverbial syntax and semantics. My other research interests, which I hope to pursue or keep pursuing in the future, include the following, among others: 1) binding and reference, quantifier scope, and their interact ions with ellipsis; 2) long-distance dependencies; 3) enriching the empirical base of theoretical linguistics through fieldwork on endangered and understudied languages; and 4) integrating the insights of different research programs within linguistics (e.g., formal and functional, generative and typological, theoretical and experimental).
My interests outside linguistics range from molecular biology to logic to ethics. Among my nonacademic hobbies I count reading, listening to music, watching movies, working out, surfing the Internet, and hanging out with friends. I also have a weakness for Latin and Ancient Greek, and am the winner of the 2010 Stinnecke Prize.