I recently posted this question, which was closed as off-topic for being too specific to my situation. I admit I'm a little bit confused, since it didn't seem particularly more situation-specific than this question. I'd like to improve the question by generalizing it so it can be reopened; since I clearly missed something when I was writing the question, I'd like some feedback on my proposed changes.
Here's a rough outline of how I would like to re-word the question:
What background is necessary to do research in computational linguistics?
I'm getting ready to enter graduate school, and I would like to do PhD-level research in computational linguistics and natural language processing. I know that these two fields are very interdisciplinary and draw on various subfields of linguistics, computer science, math, and statistics. I also know that research in comp ling and NLP is done in different departments at different schools, with some schools having it in the CS department, and some in the linguistics department.
Ideally, what background knowledge should someone have in order to do research in computational linguistics or natural language processing? Which areas of linguistics, computer science, math, and statistics are necessary or helpful in studying comp ling and NLP, and is there one field among those four which is overall more necessary than the others?
(Note: per this question from Linguistics.SE, the distinction between comp ling and NLP is pretty blurry, which is why I mention both in my question.)
I'd like to know if there's any more room for improvement, if this looks like a valid, on-topic question, or if there's no saving this question and I should delete it.