32.3621, All: Pieter Seuren (1934-2021)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-3621. Tue Nov 16 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.3621, All: Pieter Seuren (1934-2021)

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Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2021 06:54:17
From: Camiel Hamans [hamans at telfort.nl]
Subject: Pieter Seuren (1934-2021)

 
With regret and sorrow we have to inform you about the demise of Pieter A.M.
Seuren (1934-2021).  Pieter Seuren, although born and raised in a completely
monolingual Dutch environment, was born roughly as a linguist. During his
secondary school days with the Jesuits in Amsterdam, he was already noticed by
his interest in languages and linguistic questions. His classical language
teacher therefore advised him to study Greek and Latin, which he did at the
University of Amsterdam, where he also immediately added general linguistics
to his curriculum.

Shortly after completing his studies in Amsterdam, he was appointed first at
Cambridge (1967) and then at Oxford (1970), where he tried to introduce the
newly emerging generative linguistic theory. In 1974 he returned to the
Netherlands where he took up the chair of Philosophy of Language at Radboud
University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In 1995 he moved over to the Arts
Faculty of that university, to become the professor of Theoretical
Linguistics. Since his retirement from the chair of Theoretical Linguistics in
1999 he has been a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics, also at Nijmegen.

Seuren was mainly interested in semantic issues and that is why he felt very
close to the theory of generative semantics, preferring to call it 'semantic
syntax'. When Noam Chomsky banned generative semantics, Seuren turned his back
on him. However, he also did not subscribe to theories such as those of
Richard Montague, which he considered too formal and therefore too far removed
from the logic of natural language. His work on the interface between logic
and linguistics has focused on the logical system hidden in language. He in no
way shunned formalization, but believed that natural language should form the
basis for a formal description. On the other hand, he also opposed what he
thought was too fuzzy analysis, as he believed to have become commonplace in
the work of cognitive linguists. In his last still unpublished book on the
foundations of the humanities, he specifically opposes the legacy of
positivism in modern linguistics. He advocates a cognitive approach based on
natural language in which he tried to model the natural logic of the human
species as expressed in natural language. This approach implies a major shift
in perspective as regards the applicability of standard modern logic to the
semantics of natural language.

Seuren did not limit himself to semantics. He supported the study of
sociolinguistics in the Netherlands by translating foreign textbooks. Together
with Herman Wekker, he was one of the founders of the study of creolistics in
the Netherlands. His own research focused on Sranan (Suriname) and Mauritian
Creole. He also published an authoritative handbook about the history of
linguistics, in which he also left ample room for the history of logic.

Pieter Seuren was a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and received
an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow in 1996. He was made an
honorary member of the Linguistic Society of America in 2008. Pieter Seuren
was a visiting professor at numerous international universities.

Pieter Seuren was not only a rich source for his friends, collaborators and
students, because of his enormous erudition, which is also apparent from his
popular scientific publication of capita selecta from history, but also
because of his enthusiasm. He was able to transfer his curiosity to others,
which made him an inspired and gifted teacher and a much sought-after speaker,
who did not spare his listeners. He could be critical and where he perceived
sloppy thinking he became polemical.

He will be missed by his former students, colleagues and friends. Most
importantly, however, our sympathy goes to his son Raj, his wife and their
daughter.
 


Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics



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