Joe Greenberg

[Tom Givon]

Dear friends and fellow travellers,

The news of the passing of Joseph Greenberg, yesterday at Stanford,
California, may have already filtered out through the network. As I
expect, an outpouring of grief, rememberances and appreciations will now
begin to gather steam. If one could deign to credit a single person as
founder of our network, it would surely be Joe. For in his work most
clearly than in any others', the transparent unity of typology,
universals, diachrony and functionalism was manifest, indeed boldly
proclaimed and painstakingly argued. His catholic tastes in languages
and linguistics, his restless scholarship, his adventuresome curiosity,
and above all his insistence of understanding and explanation, have
inspired several generations of linguists and anthropologists. We will
sorely miss him.

                                                              Tom Givon