27.1816, Featured Linguist: Michael Gamon

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-1816. Tue Apr 19 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.1816, Featured Linguist: Michael Gamon

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Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:55:32
From: LINGUIST List [linguist at linguistlist.org]
Subject: Featured Linguist: Michael Gamon

 
Dear LINGUIST List Readers,

We are pleased to present you our next featured linguist, Michael Gamon, for
Fund Drive 2016.

Please support the LINGUIST List editors and activities with a donation:

http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/

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I grew up in Bad Soden, a small town on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany.
My parents always encouraged any interest of mine. Whether it was science (the
chemistry lab in the basement, even the rockets and explosive experiments in
the yard) or language and literature. My dad had a fairly extensive collection
of world literature. He was in his 20s when WWII ended and could not get
enough of the books and the modern art that became available after the
barbarism of the Third Reich. The interest in reading rubbed off on me,
allegedly I could read fluently by the time I entered first grade, having
taught myself reading by asking adults (sometimes total strangers) to spell
out letters and labels aloud, starting with the signs in the elevator of our
apartment building. Once I had outgrown children’s books, I was allowed to
pick any book I wanted from my dad’s shelves, as long as I would put it back
after reading it – and I took full advantage of that. There was no notion of
“age-appropriate” books in our house: if I could read it and enjoy it, it was
considered appropriate. From those beginnings, language, literature and
science never lost their appeal for me. In high school I focused on physics,
math and English, and when the time came to decide on what to study, I
narrowed down the choice to geophysics or German studies and it was my choice
to make. My rationale at the time was: Go for the big and risky dream first
(study literature to become a writer), and if that does not work out, science
and engineering are still another interesting option.

I did not know about Linguistics until I signed up for German studies at the
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. It was one of the academic
minors “Nebenfächer” offered in German studies --an interesting application of
formal methods to the subject of language. All it took was an introductory
generative syntax course (taught by the unforgettable Wolfgang Sternefeld) to
get hooked. and studied under Helen Leuninger and Günther Grewendorf. Language
and the mind/brain, the mathematics of language, and the distant prospect of
computers analyzing language – this was incredibly exciting! A few years into
the program, I applied for a Fulbright scholarship to study generative
linguistics in the US. To my surprise I made it through round after round of
the selection process until I was placed in the University of Washington’s
linguistics program. When I received the happy news, I tried to find the
university on a map – poring unsuccessfully over a DC area map -- the only
“Washington” I recognized.

Read more...

http://blog.linguistlist.org/fund-drive/featured-linguist-michael-gamon/







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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-1816	
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