Doug Coleman
I did not know until very recently that Jean Casagrande had passed away. I was one of his grad students, back in the 1970’s. To all of us, he always insisted on being “Jean” rather than “Professor Casagrande.” In class he was always easygoing. However, despite his laid-back manner, I remember him as a professor of rare intellectual integrity. One time, I submitted a research paper for a graduate class in theoretical syntax. Jean gave me an “A,” but he said when he gave me the paper back with his notes on it, “I’m sure the conclusion here is wrong, but I can’t find any flaw in your arguments or data.” I replied, “Yeah, I agree.” He laughed. I suggested that there must be something wrong with the way syntactic arguments are made in theoretical linguistics. I think it was then that he offered the idea that linguistics in a few generations would probably be unrecognizable to us. That did not seem to bother him, even though theoretical syntax was his career. He was not a man to hang onto ideas out of pride or fear of losing prestige. I respected him greatly for that aspect of his character.
