23.3586, All: Obituary: Rajendra Singh

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-3586. Mon Aug 27 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.3586, All: Obituary: Rajendra Singh

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Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:58:06
From: Probal Dasgupta [probal53 at gmail.com]
Subject: Obituary: Rajendra Singh

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One of the major practitioners of the linguistics discipline, Rajendra 
Singh, passed away today in Montreal. He was sixty-nine. Otto Ikome 
called to give me the sad news. Raj had been suffering from cancer.

With Otto's help, I was able to have a telephonic conversation with Raj 
about a month ago; he sounded upbeat, and I had been hoping he 
would indeed have something close to a full recovery. But our hopes 
were dashed.

The basic facts of Rajendra Singh's career may need to be rehearsed, 
as younger linguists may not have met him or read his work. After his 
Ph.D. in Linguistics at Brown University, Raj joined the Universite de 
Montreal in 1972, and stayed on. His 1987 article 'Well-formedness 
conditions and phonological theory' (Wolfgang Dressler et al. [eds] 
Phonologica 1984, 273-285) was a much-cited landmark paper that 
helped change the course of phonology. When the paradigm shift took 
place, the architects of Optimality Theory gave explicit credit to Raj. 
After formulating his theory of Generative Phonotactics, Raj focused 
his attention on morphology, and was able to place his approach, 
Whole Word Morphology, firmly on the map. While
those responsible for one of the more influential theories of 
morphology -- Distributed Morphology -- acknowledge the affinity 
between their own work and Raj's and even their debt to him (Alec 
Marantz, p.c. in 1997), his contribution to phonology met with 
unreserved acceptance. Raj's morphological work will receive a 
rigorous second hearing when the community comes to grips with the 
morphology-syntax interface with more seriousness than it has been 
able to muster at this stage.

Both Raj's phonology and his morphology owed a great deal to crucial 
fellow workers who were lifelong friends of his -- David Stampe, Alan 
Ford, Stanley Starosta.  But the specific implementation we find in the 
formalizations of Generative Phonotactics and Whole Word 
Morphology carried the stamp of Raj's own distinctive style of thought 
and expression.

There is a lot more to say; I am focusing on core linguistics because of 
his own priorities; but his contributions to 'sociolinguistics', to that which 
is spoken by 'non-native speakers of English', to 'applied linguistics' (he 
had serious problems with the terms, and with the thought that these 
areas of inquiry could be validly regarded as distinct disciplines) 
include major cult classics which are highly regarded by colleagues 
interested in those matters. It is impossible even at the best of times to 
weave a single coherent narrative about Raj's contribution to all the 
fields he took an interest in. And this is hardly the best of times. I am in 
shock, personally. Raj and I were very close. I hope readers will forgive 
me for any omissions in this message.


Best

Probal

Probal Dasgupta
Linguistic Research Unit
Indian Statistical Institute
203 Barrackpore Trunk Road
Kolkata 700108, India 


Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable






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