A la m émoire de Nick Clements - to Nick Clements' memory

Tue Sep 15 11:24:54 UTC 2009

*A la mémoire de Nick Clements*  (English version bellow)

La disparition de G. Nick Clements survenue le 30 août 2009 a peiné toutes les personnes ayant eu la chance et l'honneur de le connaître. Nous avons perdu un grand ami et un des phonologues les plus inspirés et productifs de notre temps.

Afin de rendre hommage à l'esprit vif et talentueux de Nick, le Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie (LPP) a mis en place *une page web* où amis et collègues peuvent partager leurs souvenirs.  Cette page sera mise à jour régulièrement. Elle est accessible sur : 

http://lpp.univ-paris3.fr/equipe/nick_clements/remembering-nick-clements.html

Si vous souhaitez vous exprimer et contribuer à cette collection de souvenirs, merci d'envoyer  textes et/ou images à l'adresse suivante : remember.nickclements at gmail.com

Nous nous réunirons à la mémoire de Nick le *vendredi 9 octobre* (à partir de 18h) au Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie (19 rue des Bernardins, 75005 Paris). Si vous souhaitez partager vos souvenirs autour de la mémoire de  Nick, et rappeler tout ce qu'il a pu nous apporter, venez vous joindre à nous.  

Pour des raisons d'organisation, nous apprécierions si vous pouviez nous prévenir de votre présence par courriel (remember.nickclements at gmail.com). 

Les collègues de Nick au LPP (Paris) 

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*To Nick Clements' memory*

G. Nick Clements' death on Aug. 30, 2009 shocked everyone who was fortunate enough to know him. We have lost a great friend and one of the most gifted and productive phonologists of the last decades. 

In order to keep Nick's fertile spirit alive, the Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie (LPP) has set up a web page where colleagues and friends can share memories and thoughts about Nick. This page will be updated frequently. It is accessible at http://lpp.univ-paris3.fr/equipe/nick_clements/remembering-nick-clements.html.

If you wish to contribute, please send text, images or videos to remember.nickclements at gmail.com

We will gather to remember Nick on Friday October 9th, 2009 from 6 pm at the LPP (19 rue des Bernardins, 75005 Paris).  If you wish to share your memories of Nick and celebrate his life and what he brought us, you are invited to join us. 

For organizational reasons, we would appreciate to know in advance if you will join us. Please email remember.nickclements at gmail.com

Nick's colleagues of the LPP in Paris.

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*An obituary by the members of the LPP*

G. Nick Clements was born on Oct. 5, 1940, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended Moses Brown School in Providence. In 1962, he graduated with high honors from Yale University, majoring in fine arts and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, which celebrates the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America's leading colleges and universities. After a year in Nashville as a classical music DJ, he served in the Army Signal Corps for two years, stationed in Germany. Following his service, he lived in Spain for several years, painting, studying art and writing for an English language periodical. In 1968, he received a certificat from the Centre de Linguistique Quantitative, Faculté des Sciences, Université de Paris. From 1971 to 1973, he was adjunct professor of American English at the University of Paris 8. In 1973, he received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London, defending a thesis on the Ewe language based on fieldwork in Ghana. He was a visiting scientist and lecturer at the department of foreign languages and linguistics at MIT (1973-1975), and held appointments as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Harvard (1975-1982). In 1982, he moved to Cornell University, where he was Professor of linguistics and Director of the Phonetics Laboratory. In 1992, he came to Paris, where he became Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and worked in the Laboratory of Phonetics and Phonology (UMR7018). He held this position until 2008, when he was elected Professor Emeritus. Clements was also an invited professor in various prestigious universities across the world, in Europe, USA, India, Australia, etc. He was also very active in the academic world. In the last three years, he organized two widely attended international conferences at the Sorbonne University: one on "The phonetic bases of distinctive features" in 2006 and one on "Where do phonological features come from?" in 2007.

Clements' research interests were wide-ranging and he made outstanding contributions in phonology and phonetics- phonology interface. He is best known for his groundbreaking work on syllable and feature theory and his pioneering work on the phonological systems of various African languages, including tonal and vowel-harmony systems. His recent cross-linguistic studies on phonological units have contributed in designing and developing theories and models on phonological representations and have led to a better understanding of the role of features in speech sound inventories. A characteristic feature of Clements' works is his rigorous scientific method and his unusual gift for finding the most convincing argumentations and drawing the clearest and most synthesized conclusions. Clements was not only an excellent connoisseur of the field, not only an expert on the language or languages studied, but also an outstanding theoretician and a highly trained phonetician. He left behind for us tremendous work in the areas of phonology and phonetics. He wrote and co-authored five books and nearly 100 articles, including journal articles, book and encyclopedia chapters, conference and working papers. He was productive until the end of his life, with some major contributions still to appear. 

Nick Clements had several passions outside the field of linguistics. He was a music lover and was particularly knowledgeable about jazz music. He played keyboard in a jazz workshop at a club in Paris in the last year of his life. He was also a passionate traveler and visited many parts of the world in the five continents. He traveled for both work and pleasure, and was fluent in several languages. But the number one of his passions was his family: his wife and colleague, Dr. Annie Rialland, his children, William and Célia, his brother, sisters and their families.

G. Nick Clements was a great linguist, endowed with an outstanding ability to listen, to guide, to inspire reflections, and to stimulate brainstorming and creative thinking. He was also gifted with noble human qualities: kind, compassionate, generous, and humble. He will forever be remembered fondly for that and much more.

Rachid Ridouane and all his colleagues 
of the Phonetics and Phonology Laboratory in Paris.

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Jacqueline Vaissière

Professeur de Phonétique

Directeur du Laboratoire de Phonétique et de Phonologie (LPP)

UMR 7018-CNRS/Sorbonne Nouvelle

19 rue des Bernardins

75005 Paris

tel 01 43 26 57 17 

http://lpp.univ-paris3.fr/

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