James D McCawley: A Final Remembrance

[H Stephen Straight]

The Westin Bonaventure ballroom was beginning to fill up when the former
student, only six years Jim's junior and now a full professor himself, happened
upon Jim McCawley, the man most responsible for the former student's having
decided to become a linguist.  Predictably, though they hadn't seen each other
in nearly three years and had only crossed paths a dozen or so times since Jim
had transformed himself from beloved teacher to esteemed colleague with an
affirmative vote on the student's dissertation, Jim's face blossomed into a
massive, wide-eyed, toothy grin as the two vigorously shook hands.

After threading their way through the crowd, pausing repeatedly to acknowledge
greetings for Jim, they sat together in the front row of the second bank of
seats,  No small talk got in the way of their moving directly to their constant
joint purpose, to do linguistics:  Swinging his rumpled briefcase up onto his
lap, Jim leafed through it, pulling out paper after paper in lieu of what could
otherwise have required a four-hour recitation of the fruits of the last 18
months or so of his scholarly production.  Most of the gifts came with the
usual "Here's my chapter in the book so-and-so put together for such-and-such a
press", but when he got to his favorite, an annual compendium of linguistic
oddities, Jim paused to crow over a few wonderful published examples of
Bach-Peters sentences, and was rewarded by his well-trained student with a neat
little analogy between Bach-Peters sentences and M.C. Escher prints, such as
the Belvedere, which can be captioned "The man who is climbing it doesn't
realize the impossibility of getting up the ladder he is climbing."

As soon as Jim had finished voraciously inscribing the delicious example in the
back of the checkbook he used as an ever-ready notepad, the two faced forward
to hear the plenary speaker.  The topic was a familiar one to Jim -- his
frequent asides included a rueful reference to the fact that he had demolished
more than one of the speaker's arguments in a review he'd published several
years before -- but his attention never flagged, and his good humor never
diminished.

When the talk was over, Jim was the first to jump to the microphone:  "Can you
please help me understand something that has always puzzled me about the way
many linguists use the term 'universal grammar'?  When you say that something
is a fact of universal grammar, are you using the word grammar as a count noun
or a mass noun?  In my view, there may be lots of universal grammar around
without their _a_ universal grammar."  The speaker of course provided the
standard waffling response to this question, and didn't seem to realize that
many in the audience would conclude that this question undermined the entire
foundation of the talk he had given.  But Jim didn't press the point, and when
the discussion period ended he applauded loudly, his hands raised high over his
head, his sparkling eyes riveted affectionately on those of the speaker, and
his mouth broadened into a winning smile.

As they rose from their seats to sidle together down the center aisle and out
of the room, the two -- still truly teacher and student despite the passage of
time and changes of status -- exchanged remarks about how much had changed and
how little had changed in the 30-plus years they'd been doing linguistics
together.  When they got to the foyer, the former student was turning to ask if
Jim could join him for dinner when a senior figure, whose comments earlier in
the day had made the student think that he might not wait another decade to
come to a meeting of this professional society, pulled Jim aside to whisper
about dinner arrangements for Jim and the other past presidents.  Realizing
instantly what he'd do with his evening, the student gave Jim a smiling wave
good-bye and went up to his room to start working his way through the pile of
goodies he'd greedily stuffed into his folio.
                Best.           'Bye.           Steve

 H Stephen Straight -- Anthro, Ling, & Langs Across the Curric (LxC)
 Office: 607.777.2824 - Home: 607.723.0157 - Fax: 607.777.2889/.2477
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