Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 Early years  





2 Education  





3 Academic career  





4 Associations  





5 Personal life  





6 Selected publications  





7 See also  





8 References  





9 External links  














Emmon Bach






مصرى
Ślůnski
 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


Emmon Bach
Professor Emeritus
Born12 June 1929[1]
Kumamoto, Japan[1]
Died28 November 2014 (2014-11-29) (aged 85)[1]
Oxford, England
NationalityAmerican[3]
OccupationLinguist
Spouses
  • Jean Bach
  • Reed Young
  • Barbara Partee
  • Wynn Chao
  • Children2[4]
    Academic background
    Alma materUniversity of Chicago[1]
    ThesisPatterns of Syntax in Hoelderlin’s Poems[2] (1959)
    Academic work
    InstitutionsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst
    WebsiteFaculty page

    Emmon Bach (12 June 1929 – 28 November 2014) was an American linguist. He was Professor Emeritus at the Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), part of the University of London. He was born in Kumamoto, Japan.[3]

    His interests included syntax, phonology, the languages of British Columbia (especially Haisla), problems of tense and aspect in semantics, and formal problems and semantic issues in the morphologyofpolysynthetic languages. In November 2014, he died in Oxford.[5]

    Early years[edit]

    Bach's parents, Ditlev Gotthard Monrad Bach and Ellen Sigrid Bach - originally from Copenhagen, Denmark - were Lutheran missionaries in Japan.[6][4] Bach – and all but the oldest of his five siblings – was born in Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu.[6] Since his father taught Japanese to the American Navy language officers during the World War II, they were considered to be American nationals, and received warnings to leave Japan in 1941. As a child Bach spoke Danish and some Japanese.[6] When he was ten, Bach was sent to the International Canadian Academy in Kobe. In Fresno, California his father was a "pastor to Japanese-Americans interned during the war."[4] Bach attended Boulder High School in Boulder, Colorado and Roosevelt High School in Fresno, CA.[4][1]

    Education[edit]

    He "did his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Chicago, with a Ph.D. in Germanic studies[2] in 1959."[1][3][4] He was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Tübingen from 1955-56.[3][6]

    Academic career[edit]

    His first regular academic job was at the University of Texas at Austin where he taught from 1959 to 1972. He started in the German department and gradually switched to linguistics. He was part of the newly formed linguistics department.[4] After spending a year teaching at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, he began teaching as professor of linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1973.[1][3][4] "He taught syntax, semantics, typology and field methods, and supervised 12 doctorate dissertations in semantics, syntax and phonology."[4] Following his retirement in 1992, he continued to be active in academia.[citation needed]

    Emmon's numerous publications included reviews, articles and books on "syntax, phonology, morphology and semantics, including on problems of tense and aspect in semantics, and on formal problems and semantic issues in the morphology of polysynthetic languages."[4][7]

    During the 1980s and 1990s Bach worked extensively in British Columbia.[4] From 1994 to 1999 he worked as a visiting professor with the First Nations Programme of the University of Northern British Columbia where he went to local First Nations communities to teach and co-teach primarily for First Nations students. He also worked as a language resource for the Haisla Treaty Commission.[6] By 2003 Bach had already nurtured "longtime involvement with the Haisla language community in the coastal village of Kitimaat in British Columbia. His work with the Haisla has included preparation of a new dictionary and two volumes of traditional stories and life stories; transcription of biblical and homiletic materials produced by Christian missionaries in the 1940s; and the creation of an extensive archive of linguistic work on Haisla."[8] When he first arrived in Kitimaat, Mike Shaw, a Haisla speaker, asked "Why should we help you, what good will all that do for us?" "From this exchange Bach formulated what he has come to call Mike Shaw's Principle: Time and resources for community-relevant research and activities should equal those devoted to community-external aims."[8]

    Associations[edit]

    Bach was elected president of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) in 1996.[4] In 2006, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America.[9] In 2015, the LSA created the Emmon Bach Fellowship fund, which provides awards for students to cover costs of participation in the biannual Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang).[10]

    Personal life[edit]

    Both his first wife, Jean Bach, and his daughter, Meta Bach, predeceased him. He is survived by his wife Wynn Chao of London, his son Eric Bach and grandson Stevie Bach of Madison, his stepsons Morriss, David, and Joel Partee, his stepchildren Christopher and Gabriella Lewis, step grandchildren Sean Partee, Sara Davis, and Rachael Davis Partee, his second wife Reed Young of Houston, and his third wife Barbara Partee of Amherst.[11] He moved to London, England in 2002.

    Selected publications[edit]

    See also[edit]

    References[edit]

    1. ^ a b c d e f g "Emmon Bach 1929-2014". Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts. Amherst, MA. 5 December 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  • ^ a b Bach, Emmon (1959). Patterns of Syntax in Hoelderlin's Poems (Thesis). Chicago. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  • ^ a b c d e Bach, Emmon (2008). "Emmon W. Bach curriculum vitae 25 March 2008". Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. Archived from the original on 12 January 2016. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  • ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Emmon Bach (1929 - 2014) Obituary". Gazette. 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  • ^ Partee, Barbara, ed. (5 December 2014). "R.I.P. Emmon Bach" (Obituary). Language Log, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  • ^ a b c d e Bach, Emmons (2014). "Me and the German Language: Excerpts from an Autobiography". University of Massachusetts. Archived from the original on 29 March 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  • ^ "Publications in Linguistics by Emmon Bach". University of Massachusetts. 2008. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  • ^ a b Allen, Terry Y. (2003), "At-risk Native Talk", University of Massachusetts Magazine, archived from the original on 13 February 2016, retrieved 8 January 2016
  • ^ "LSA Fellows by Year of Induction | Linguistic Society of America". www.linguisticsociety.org. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  • ^ "Emmon Bach Fellowship Fund Fully Endowed | Linguistic Society of America". www.linguisticsociety.org.
  • ^ News: Emmon Bach 1929-2014, Amherst, MA: UMass Department of Linguistics, 4 December 2014
  • External links[edit]


    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emmon_Bach&oldid=1215232348"

    Categories: 
    Linguists from the United States
    Syntacticians
    1929 births
    2014 deaths
    University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty
    Deaths from pneumonia in England
    Linguistic Society of America presidents
    Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America
    Hidden categories: 
    Articles with short description
    Short description matches Wikidata
    Use dmy dates from January 2016
    Articles with hCards
    All articles with unsourced statements
    Articles with unsourced statements from December 2020
    CS1 errors: periodical ignored
    CS1 maint: location missing publisher
    Articles with FAST identifiers
    Articles with ISNI identifiers
    Articles with VIAF identifiers
    Articles with WorldCat Entities identifiers
    Articles with BNE identifiers
    Articles with BNF identifiers
    Articles with BNFdata identifiers
    Articles with CANTICN identifiers
    Articles with GND identifiers
    Articles with J9U identifiers
    Articles with KBR identifiers
    Articles with LCCN identifiers
    Articles with Libris identifiers
    Articles with NKC identifiers
    Articles with NTA identifiers
    Articles with PLWABN identifiers
    Articles with MGP identifiers
    Articles with SNAC-ID identifiers
    Articles with SUDOC identifiers
     



    This page was last edited on 23 March 2024, at 22:15 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki