ginnyde Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 It is with much sadness that I am letting you know that I just found out tonight that Ellen died last October. I had called her house and left a message about our upcoming luncheon. Her husband called me tonight and gave me the sad news. Ellen was an amazing women. She was a retired linguist professor at the Univ of PA. She was bright and funny and kind. Ellen had made the decision to accept no treatment and lived her way. She will be missed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ts Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Ginny, Thank you so much for relating this news. I saw the shout out to her for the upcoming lunch and hoped we would hear a good news update. If you continue to speak with her husband, please let him know that her words were invaluable to me. Definitely someone I always wanted to hear from, but I am just hopeful that her days were sweet right till the end. Do you know if there was a published obit? Stephanie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginnyde Posted March 17, 2011 Author Share Posted March 17, 2011 Stephanie, I tried scanning through the Phila Inquirer obit section and could not find anything. She attended a few of our luncheons and we enjoyed her so much. I have her tel #. If you like it, pm me. I hope you are doing well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ts Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I hope it is okay for me to post this link. It must be hers. I love the comments, if you click on the link. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2740 A note from the Penn Linguistics Department, written by Gillian Sankoff and Tony Kroch: It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our colleague Ellen F. Prince. Ellen died peacefully at home in Philadelphia on Sunday, October 24, after a long battle with cancer. After earning her doctorate in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, Ellen joined the faculty of the Penn Linguistics Department in the same year. She taught here until her retirement in 2005 and served as chair of our department from 1993 to 1997. Ellen was also active in the affairs of the Linguistic Society of America, serving on the executive committee and in many other capacities. She was noted for her interdisciplinary perspective and held a secondary appointment in Penn's Computer and Information Sciences Department. Among her many honors were the Presidency of the Linguistic Society of America in 2008 and election as a fellow of the AAAS in 2009. A pioneer in linguistic pragmatics, Ellen worked on her own and with many colleagues and students on various aspects of the subject. Several of her incisive and tightly argued papers became classics in the field. She is perhaps best known for her typology of information statuses in discourse, based on the study of naturally-occurring data; but she also devoted major efforts to the study of the pragmatic functions of syntactic constructions, including the various species of cleft and left-periphery constructions, including topicalization and left-dislocation. She had a particular interest in Yiddish and used her knowledge of that language to do ground-breaking work on the cross-linguistic comparison of the pragmatic functions of syntactic constructions. In later years, she continued her work on the referential status of noun phrases in the framework of centering theory, as developed by colleagues Aravind Joshi, Scott Weinstein and Barbara Grosz. Ellen was an inspirational and caring teacher, imparting high intellectual standards while at the same time providing solid support and mentoring to her many students. We missed her acutely when she retired from our department; she will be even more sorely missed now and for years to come. Friends, colleagues and students who would like to remember Ellen Prince by making a charitable donation are asked to donate to the American Lung Association. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick C Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 So sorry to read this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maryanne Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 This is so unfair... since October... we should have been told somehow.. We love Ellen as she was one of our quarterly LCSC luncheon buddies.. I know some of us would have gone to her funeral... I am really bummed right now... Maryanne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shineladysue Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 This is such sad news. My sincerest condolences go out to all of her family and friends. Sue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaminkw Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 So sad, another of our dear members passes on. I was so impressed by her courage. Thanks for the obit Stephanie. Judy in KW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bud Baker Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 I'm so sorry to read this. Ellen was obviously very bright, and certainly never shy about taking her own view on things and going her own way. I miss her and miss her perspectives on things here, as she posted them. RIP, Ellen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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