Scott Soames (philosophy of language, history of analytic philosophy), a member of the Princeton faculty for more than two decades, has accepted the offer from the University of Southern California. That’s a major hiring coup for USC, which should also up their odds of recruiting Jeff King (philosophy of language) at the University of California at Davis, who also has an offer. With James Higginbotham already at USC, the addition of Soames also makes USC one of the top choices in the country for students interested in philosophy of language–even more so if King comes as well.

UPDATE: More on related folks in linguistics at USC here.