Timeline

The Department celebrated our 50th anniversary in 2017.  One of our founding members includes Charles Fillmore (1929-2014), a prominent linguist who developed many fundamental concepts used in linguistics today. An article on his life and achievements can be found here. The first department chair was our esteemed colleague Ilse Lehiste, who passed away on December 25, 2010.  We maintain a webpage in her honor. If you have thoughts, pictures or other things you would like to share on this page, please send them to lingadm@ling.osu.edu.  You can also contribute online to the Ilse Lehiste Memorial Fund (#313586), or mail to The Ohio State University Foundation, Office of University Development, 1480 West Lane Avenue, Columbus, OH 43221.

Timeline of Notable Department Events
Date Event
1961 Charles J Fillmore and William S-Y Yang begin at Ohio State
Founding of the Division of Linguistics, with Bill Wang serving as chair
1963 Terrence S Kaufman begins
1965 The PhD Program in Linguistics is established
Mantaro Hashimoto and Anne Yue-Hashimoto are the first graduates that year
Ilse Lehiste and Cathy Callaghan begin.
1967 Department of Linguistics established, June 19th
Ilse Lehiste is the first Chair
First volume of OSU Working Papers in Linguistics is published.
1969 Arnold Zwicky begins at Ohio State
Move from University Hall to Cunz Hall (due to an anechoic chamber warping the building and causing it to be condemned)
1971 Mike Geis begins
1972 David Dowty begins
1979 Brian Joseph and Robert Fox begin at Ohio State
The first edition of Language Files is published (Geoghegan, Latta, Perkins & D. Schaffer, eds)
1985 Mary Beckman and Dave Odden begin at Ohio State
First Conference on Laboratory Phonology, held at Ohio State
1987 Peter Culicover begins
Ilse Lehiste retires
Linguistics is awarded the Academic Challenge Award
Bob Levine, Craige Roberts and Don Winford begin.
1990 Carl Pollard begins
1991 Language Files 5 is published (Crabtree and Powers, eds.)
Linguistics moves from Cunz to Oxley
Beth Hume begins
1993 Ohio State hosts the LSA Summer Institute
Keith Johnson begins as a faculty member
Robert Kasper begins.
1995 Sam Rosenthall begins
2000 Chris Brew and Shari Speer begin at Ohio State
2001 100th Linguistics PhD at Ohio State is filed!
Detmar Meurers begins
Linguistics is awarded the Departmental Teaching Excellence Award
2005 Mike White begins
Linguistics awarded a Targeted Investment in Excellence Award
Cynthia Clopper and Judith Tonhauser begin.
2007 Kathryn Campbell Kibler begins
2010 William Schuler begins
2012 Micha Elsner and Marie-Catherine de Marneffe begin
2013 Becca Morley begins
2015 The department moves from Oxley to offices in the Ohio Stadium