Dear Ivan,<\/p>\n
We go back a long way, you and I. We graduated about the same time
\nand for a while we were competing for the same jobs, never to my
\nadvantage I seem to remember. There are many memories I have
\nstretching over the period from the mid-seventies to the present.<\/p>\n
A couple of them involve your garage. One of them we have talked
\nabout before and you, graciously, claim to have forgotten it. There
\nwas a time when you had a keyboard in your garage and you needed a
\nkeyboard player (for Dead Tongues, I guess). “You just have to play
\nthe chords,” you said when I protested that this kind of music was
\nbeyond me, and you presented me with a written chord-sequence. But when I
\nplayed the chords it sounded (sort of) like Mozart complete with
\nAlberti base. “You have to get the rhythm too,” you said. I tried
\nagain, and again, and the more I tried the more like Mozart it
\nsounded. In the end we both agreed that I could not play this kind of
\nmusic. Later we were discussing this with dinner guests and you said
\nwith genuine respect, “Robin is a classically trained pianist”, as if
\nthat would explain my failure. You’re a kind man, Ivan.<\/p>\n
The other garage memory comes from the period when Elisabet and I used
\nto spend time periodically in Stanford and needed somewhere to store
\ndomestic bits and pieces between visits. A corner of your garage was
\noffered for the purpose. “I call it my Cooper Store,” you said. Not
\nonly kind, but funny.<\/p>\n
Then, of course, there was the long lasting bottle of Pimm’s which you
\nwould bring out if (and, for all I know, only if) I visited. It’s
\nlong gone now and neither of us can drink it any more, but the memory
\nis still sweet.<\/p>\n
Another memory is from a discussion we had at, I think, an LSA summer
\nschool. You were presenting some complex analysis (I forget of what),
\ntoo fast for me to follow. “Let’s take it one step at a time,” I
\nsaid. “I love this,” you said, rejoicing at my slowness. “No really,
\nit’s great to get down to the details.” Generous, you are too.<\/p>\n
Intellectually, we have in common the heady days of the eighties and
\nthe somewhat befuddled perception that HPSG and situation semantics
\n(among a number of other things) were both following a
\n“constraint-based” or “Bay Area” approach. I’ve been thinking a bit
\nover recent years what we meant by that. And the more I think, the
\nmore I come to understand the depth and importance of your work on
\ngrammar and how much it is influencing my own current work on type
\ntheory and records. It opens up an approach to grammar that is so
\nmuch more related to what people actually seem to do when they talk to
\neach other than many other approaches to grammar. Thanks, Ivan. I
\nreally feel like I’m beginning to understand.<\/p>\n
Now if I could just get the swing of those chords, I’d be all set.<\/p>\n
Robin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Ivan, We go back a long way, you and I. We graduated about the same time and for a while we were competing for the same jobs, never to my advantage I seem to remember. There are many memories … Continue reading