C.L. Baker, or Lee Baker as he
was known to colleagues and friends, was always an important
presence. He contributed immeasurably to the Linguistics Department,
to the University of Texas, and to the profession of linguistics.
His untimely death in early 1997 saddened us all.
Lee Baker received a BA in mathematics
at Harvard College in 1961, and a Ph.D in linguistics in 1968
at the University of Illinois. He joined the Department of
Linguistics at the University of Texas in 1968 as a National
Science Foundation Faculty Associate. He became an Assistant
Professor in 1970, an Associate Professor in 1972, and full
Professor in 1980.
Baker served as Chair of the
Department for two terms, 1985-1989 and 1989-1993. He was appointed
Harold C. and Alice T. Nowlin Regents Professor in Liberal
Arts in 1989. In the Department of Linguistics and the University
as a whole, Baker was active in many ways: he was deeply concerned
with issues affecting the well-being and intellectual environment
of students and faculty.
Syntactic theory and the syntax
of English were Baker's main research areas, and he left a
lasting mark in both. His first two articles, on questions
and negation, present important ideas and data which are still
of interest. For instance, there are references to his early
analysis of questions in a syntax text published in 1997. The
English auxiliary verb system fascinated Baker throughout his
career, and he wrote a number of articles about it. In this
body of work Baker combines a scrupulous respect for data with
theoretical rigor and explanatory power. Never doctrinaire,
Baker also used his analytical skills and deep knowledge of
the syntax of English to critique developments in transformational
theory. He argued forcefully against the rather short-lived
theory of global rules, and pointed out some serious limitations
to the popular approach known as 'core grammar.
One of Baker's greatest research
strengths was his ability to recognize significant problems.
His 1979 article on syntactic theory and the projection problem
is a prime example. In this article Baker defined a question
for theory and empirical research. Learners of a first language
must somehow project their knowledge of how particular forms
behave, and thereby arrive at syntactic generalizations; yet
they must avoid over-generalization. Until Baker's article
the problem had been discussed only at a very abstract level,
in terms of classes of grammars. Baker showed precisely how
the problem arises for a grammar of English - and by extension
to that of any other language. If learners only used positive
evidence they would never make generalizations. Yet if they
made generalizations on the basis of examples, errors would
be predicted that do not occur. Baker advocated a conservative
approach to the problem: he assumed that learners generalize
more narrowly than was previously thought. This article has
been extraordinarily influential. For instance, Baker's approach
is discussed extensively by the psycholinguist Steven Pinker,
and clearly affected Pinker's way of thinking about the problem.
Pinker has sought relatively narrow, semantically-based generalizations,
to explain the limited generalizations made by learners.
Baker's interest in language acquisition continued. He conceived and co-organized
a conference on learnability theory, together with John McCarthy. They also
co-edited a volume of papers and commentaries from this conference.
Baker wrote two textbooks on
English syntax, each a classic of its kind. In both books Baker
developed a consistent, detailed set of syntactic rules for
English; this is an achievement that few have even attempted.
In the first text, published in 1978, Baker gave a technical
presentation of the transformational theory of the period.
It is probably the most complete available, and is still useful
for showing the strengths and weaknesses of that theory. Baker's
second text is a precise, non-technical account of the subject.
It is written in Baker's own voice, with depth and clarity.
The book begins with a wonderful, deceptively simple, discussion
of some of the basic ideas that underlie generative grammar.
By the end the student has a grasp of the basic structures
of the language, many extraordinarily intricate details of
noun phrases and comparatives, and has encountered some topics
of semantic interpretations such as quantifier scope and the
functions of the definite article. This book does a superb
job of teaching basic techniques of syntactic analysis as well
as the structures themselves. The book, published by MIT Press
in 1989, has been very successful. An enlarged and revised
edition was published in 1995.
Baker's last article was published
in 1995 in one of the most important journals of linguistics. Here
Baker combined a long-standing interest in anaphora with a
new awareness of the importance of linguistic context. He proposes
that a notion of discourse prominence is a necessary supplement
to the standard Binding Theory approach. The article presents
evidence for his theory from a careful corpus search. Baker
is at the forefront of linguistic research in this, his last
published article.
Baker participated actively
in several important journals. He was a founding member of
the Associate Editorial Board of Linguistic Inquiry,
from 1971 on. He served as Squibs and Discussion Editor, 1973-75.
Baker was a member of the Editorial Board of Linguistic
Analysis. He became an Associate of the inter-disciplinary
journal Brain and Behavioral Sciences in 1983, and was
Associate Editor of Language from 1985 to 1987.
Baker was a scholar of the highest
caliber. He had a strong intellect, probing, tough, and curious;
and we all felt and responded to his strength and dry humor.
He cared about his colleagues. He commented carefully on papers,
and advised on research and career matters with a characteristic
mixture of warmth and pragmatism. He was a man of principle,
with strong convictions. He raised questions - sometimes awkward
ones - and pursued them. He was willing to expend prodigious
energy to see that things went as he thought they should.
Teaching was very important
to Lee Baker. He was interested in communicating his ideas
and in helping students develop their own. He gave generously
of his time to students. He was always open to new problems
and analyses, suspicious of flashy solutions. A long-time member
of the Fellowship Committee, he was concerned that all students
be fairly treated.
Lee Baker made a real difference
to the life of the Department of Linguistics and to the University
of Texas.
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner, President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
This memorial resolution was prepared by a Special
Committee consisting of Professors Carlota S. Smith (Chair),
Robert D. King, and Stephen M. Wechsler.
