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historicallinguist

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  1. Here is one for semantics: Semantics in Generative Grammar by Heim and Kratzer (1998).
  2. Sorry for the confusion. I meant to say "undergraduate degree" when I said "UG degree" in the previous post. It looks like the program at JHU prefers candidates with previous degree(s) in disciplines such as psychology, computer science, linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, or formal disciplines such as mathematics, physics, applied mathematics, to candidates with previous degree(s) in disciplines such as XXX foreign language, or communication. That is, it seems to me that candidates with BA degrees except the few ones that specifically mentioned by the program are not particularly welcomed to apply to the linguistics program at JHU, due to the formal and quantitative nature of the program.
  3. You said the average is closer to 3.0, if looking at only linguistics and computer science courses. Do you mean that if including everything on the transcript, the cumulative GPA is below 3.0? If that is the case, I would suggest that you try everything you can to make sure that your cumulative GPA above 3.0, because 3.0 is like a threshold, and it is VERY IMPORTANT that you have a GPA higher than that.(it is a necessary but not sufficient condition though. If higher than that, no guarantee for admission. If lower than that, unlikely to get admission unless you have something else that makes you an exceptional candidate, e.g. some journal articles published in Language. That said, because McGill's linguistics program is one of the best in the world, if you could get some letters of recommendation from some people from the linguistics department at McGill, and if the letters from these people are positive, it may be possible that your low GPA will be substantially boasted by the letters from these well-known people, and therefore you may still be admitted with a below-threshold GPA. As far as I know, most of the profs. at McGill's linguistics department are exceptionally wonderful people both in terms of their qualification and the quality of the papers they published. I would suggest you to take full advantage of this precious human (and academic) resources available to you. You said you a in a cognitive science program but there is no cognitive science courses for your program at McGill. I am a bit confused by this. What do you mean? How could there be a program without courses within the program? The Arabic courses you mentioned were not particularly relevant in this case. When you do write your statement, the emphasis should be placed on theoretical linguistics and computer sciences, not specific languages. After all, the pedagogical grammars of Arabic you studied in the past have very little, if anything, to do with the generative grammar, and formal theory of language (and programming language) you will be concentrating on when you are in the MS program at UW in the future.
  4. Just have some quick thoughts on methodology. While different approaches may achieve the some goal or goals in the end, the works each method entails vary greatly. Method A entail a great deal of works, whether it is in terms of collecting data or analyzing data, etc, in order to either prove or disprove a hypothesis, whereas Method B entail very little work to get the proof or disproof. If we agree that effectiveness=WORK/TIME for a certain goal and that the time we have is a constant (or finite), and, if we agree that we should be effective, then we want to minimize the work we do in order to achieve the goal so as to be effective. In this case, I think method A should be abolished, and Method B should be adopted unless a more effective NEW method C appears. Method A should only be of interest to history of linguistics, not linguistics. An analogy can be found in the field of physics. Instead of studying Aristotelian physics, we study Newtonian physics in high-school and college in our physics classes. Aristotelian physics is only of interest to the history of physics, not modern physics. Thus, I think part of the linguistic inquiry is to find the most effective way (i.e. entailing the least amount of work possible) to understand language.
  5. What about funding? Which school offers you more funding? Also, what about fit? Are you really wanting to do phonology yet the school that offers you the better funding does not offer what you want in phonology? If this is the case, all you need to do is to consider whether you want to take priority to get into a program with better academic support but less financial support, or the other way around, i.e., with more financial support but less appropriate academic support.
  6. From what the OP had said, it looks like the OP is in some kind of language program rather than a linguistics program, because usually it is only a specific language program that would constrain linguistic data on a very specific language. What do you mean by communities of practice? Do you mean some kind of pragmatic issues? If that is the case, what is your theoretical approach? Are you doing Neo-Gricean pragmatic theory and its application to the study of Arabic or something else? You said you wanted to compare. But what are you trying to compare? Are you comparing one modern Arabic dialect with another modern dialect? Or are you comparing with one modern Arabic dialect and its historical version? Or are you comparing with one modern Arabic dialect with another modern Semitic language? or something else? Another layer of this question of comparison would be what aspects of these two languages you would like to compare. Are you going to compare the lexical semantics, syntax, phonology, or something else of these two languages? So, all in all, you need to consider very carefully 1. Theoretical Framework of the research 2. Specific Object of research 3. Is this project workable yet trivial, or important yet not workable, or both workable and important?
  7. I would say it is now the time to email the Chair of the Admission Committee. I was on a similar boat with you two months ago. I was accepted into a Ph.D. program at School A in February, without no funding offer along side with the admission offer. The department at school A told me that their funding situation this year is particularly bad, but that they may have some funding coming up in late March or early April. So, even though I had already accepted a funded offer from School B, I emailed School A today asking what is going on about the funding. School A has been silent since February, and, as expected, School A told me that they are unable to offer me funding. So, if the school that offered you admission told you something like "funding situation may be better sometime later", "some new funding may come up later" etc but has been silent for a very long period since it offered you admission, I would say that this is a very bad sign. After all, saying nothing about funding on its own is saying something about the dire funding prospect. For reimbursement, do not worry about it. You will be reimbursed. The bureaucracy of the university makes it taking forever to get you reimbursed, and this is something generally beyond the control of the department. Where were your follow-up messages sent to? Did you send them to you POIs, DGS, or administrative staff, or did you send your messages to all of these people? If it is your POIs who ignored your repeated emails, I would think twice before going to this school. Based on my past experience, those who continue to ignore emails tend to support students academically no more than the baseline minimum required by the regulation of the university. As a result, I would recommend you to carefully assess the risk of not being academically well-supported in this program before you make the decision to attend.
  8. Just curious. If someone lists on the resume something like "summa cum laude"/"cum laude" etc rather than the numerical GPA, would such a resume be reviewed positively for non-academic job application? Do you think that listing both the Latin Honor and the Numerical GPA would be a better presentation on the resume?
  9. I am quite surprised about this. But certainly it is good for me to know.(Fortunately, I did get the highest possible grades for the last semester of my undergraduate career).
  10. Do you mean that, when you apply for a post-doc position/position that requires a Ph.D., the employer/post-doc fellowship committee still requires you to submit your undergraduate transcript? I am in linguistics and this is certainly not the case for linguistics. Maybe you are right if this is the case for law. But it depends on what courses you are taking during your last semester in your undergraduate institution. I doubt whether it will really matter when you apply for a position in law if you get a C+ for your "Calculus III" class during your last semester in your undergraduate institution.
  11. How about schools with rolling enrollment? If you can pay for it either with your own fund or with a student loan, I think you could try to apply to schools with rolling enrollment. You do not have to finish the master degree in the school with rolling enrollment. You can start to apply to some other funded programs when you are in the unfunded program. As soon as you get some offers from some funded program, you could quit the unfunded program and then transfer to the funded program, without first finishing the degree in the unfunded program.
  12. I beg to disagree. I was in a cash cow master program in a presumable top tier school in the U.K. I was thinking the same thing you said before I enrolled in this cash cow program. Actually, it turned out to be one of the most serious disasters in my life. In terms of job opportunities, it depends on what kind of job you are looking for. If you are looking for non-academic jobs, a degree from a cash cow program in a school with high overall ranking would help a lot. However, if you want to continue to get a Ph.D./get some kind of academic jobs, I do not think a degree from a cash cow program would help a lot (even if it does help in some way). Actually, at least in my field, there is no deposit to pay and all I need to do is to simply send back an email saying I would like to attend/to go to the online system and click "accept"/ return the signed form saying I would like to attend (this is the case for both MA and Ph.D programs in my field). I agree with you that this tactic is highly unprofessional, and, frankly speaking, it is a tactic that takes advantage of the loophole of the contract. I would say this tactic would be something like a last resort when no other better option is available. So, all in all, I would suggest the OP uses this tactic with caution.
  13. It depends on what kind acceptances you got. If you got MA acceptances, DEFINITELY TRY YOUR BEST AND DO WELL IN THE FINAL SEMESTER OF YOUR UNDERGRAD. This is because when you apply for Ph.D. in the future, adcoms are going to look at it. However, if you got Ph.D. acceptances, forget about it, and just get a passing grade (sometimes, it is even unnecessary to pass if it is an elective course that does not count for anything and you have already got more than enough credits to graduate.) In this case, I think it is even morally acceptable to do the bare minimum. Doing more than the minimum could potentially generate a negative overall utility (your unhappiness due to more work + the unhappiness of the people around you due to your unhappiness - your prof's happiness due to your handwork > 0) , while doing the minimum should generate a 0 overall utility as your happiness due to doing less work offsets the unhappiness of your prof due to your worsened grade. So, if you adopt the moral theory of act utilitarianism, you would agree that it is morally acceptable to do the bare minimum in this case.
  14. What kind of research? I am just a little bit curious.
  15. No, not at all. GRE is like a threshold. As long as you are above the threshold (I guess it is around 320/340, writing 4/6), it does not matter any more. I think the personal statement and wring sample are far more important when it comes to whether you can get admitted or not.
  16. On the matter of translation, essentially you are mapping one form to another. Suppose we got a Latin text. Let's call this Latin text X. Suppose we had a English translation of X in 1800s. Let's call this english translation of x in 1800s Y. Now we want to make a new English translation of X in 21st century English. Let's call this translation we want to do Z. Let's call 21st century English "21E". Potentially, we could map X to 21E in order to create Z, or we could map Y to 21E to create Z. Mutatis mutandis, if we have other earlier English translation, we will have more possible mappings. The real question would be which way of mapping will achieve the best balance between accuracy and efficiency.
  17. I am not upset about this. Suppose you are right and the U.S. is pretty much a Western country. But how about the classics of the Nordic and Germanic countries? Shouldn't these classical works written in Runes be also considered part of the patrimony of European peoples or Americans with European ancestry? There is nothing wrong to do Greek/Roman classics. But I think it is problematic to assign cultural prestiges to these two cultures. This is because, when you assign a label of "being prestigious" to a certain culture, you underlying connotation is that there are some other "inferior cultures" that are inferior to the one you assign prestige to. Essentially, assigning prestige to a certain culture is in itself a discriminatory act of judgment.
  18. Which Mst course you got into in Oxford? Is your Mst in the Faculty of Classics or the Faculty of Philology?
  19. What do you mean by "our patrimony"? Not everyone in the U.S. has European ancestry. "Our Patrimony" sounds very Euro-centric, and it sounds like you dismissed the diversity of different non-European cultures.(For example, it is hard for Native Americans for recognize the Western classics as their patrimony).
  20. True. I would say accept the unfunded offer ONLY IF the unfunded offer is the ONLY OFFER you have.
  21. Accept the one (Let's say School A) with full funding with an April 15 deadline first. Then, see whether you got the German school in May. If you do, do not register for Fall classes for School A, and School A will automatically deem you as withdrawing from the program.(Then, you can avoid the problem of violating a contract because technically speaking, one of the fellowship/TAship contract would be registering for a certain credits of classes. If you do not register, you fail to meet the condition of the contract, so you are no longer eligible for the offer you accepted. Then, you could get of the offer you accepted without violating the contract). I think LSE would be your least priority. If the department does not have funding for you at all, you need to think twice before you accept their offer. Not for the reason that you will have to pay (of course this is part of the consideration, but there is some other considerations). If a department does not have funding at all for you, it is possible that this department has some serious internal financial issues. Such issues will not only manifest themselves in the form that you are not offered funding at all, but also possibly manifest themselves in the form that there may not be much student-professor interactions (because, if the department (at least in the U.K.) lacks of the financial resources, generally the professors on the website may not even teach you. You will be taught in the way that is most economical (i.e. cheapest) for the department) You may be taught be phd students, departmental lecturer, etc. And class size may be huge as a direct result of the fact that the department lacks of financial resources.) So, all in all, I think you need to do more research on what kind of academic supports you can get when you are in the program at LSE. If prestige (of a certain professor/of the department/of the school) is the only reason that drives you to LSE, go to the other funded programs. Your academic progress is not going to be supported by the prestige of the professor/of the department/of the school. After all, your academic progress is going to be supported by the academic support from your professors, and the financial support from you department and school.
  22. Maybe federal plus loan is a possibly option. I do not think U.K. schools such as LSE has too many scholarships for American citizens. If it does, it is unlikely that the scholarship will cover everything. Either way, you may need to consider federal plus loan as an option, if you really want to attend LSE.
  23. Not backing out DE JURE, but back out DE FACTO. Just not register for fall classes. Then, the original poster can automatically get out of the offer he/she accepted, without violating the binding contract of TAship/Fellowship (by not satisfying on purpose one of the essential conditions of the contract)
  24. Technically speaking, Yes. You can always accept an offer and then get out of it in various ways (without violating your own promise/contract). For example, you can withdraw during the summer by not registering classes in the online registration system for the fall. Technically speaking, if you withdraw, you are nothing violating your TA contract/Fellowship contract, because one of the conditions on your TA contract/Fellowship contract should be something like "you got to register enough credits in order to receive the funding in a certain semester". Because you are unable to fulfill this condition (by not registering for class on purpose), you can automatically get out of the offer that you accepted. But this trick will make you leave a very bad impression to the faculty members in School A (maybe you will make the people who accepted you quite angry). I would suggest you to use this trick only if you are sure that you are not going to need something in the future from the profs in School A. So, use it with caution!
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