It was a shock to hear that Anne died. She was a rare and precious person and I find no easy words to capture her spirit. As soon as I heard, I felt, “but there was so much I wanted to tell her and discuss with her”. She is one of those people for me with whom I would carry on conversations in my head—both for intellectual reasons and because I felt so much personal concern for her.
Together with Jill deVilliers we explored how children acquired long-distance rules and barriers. Another joint paper together was the first to show that children could have invisible Operator barriers for wh-movement. She went on to do important work with Harald Clahsen on case-theory and Bernard Rohrbacher on V2 and Root infinitives—and many others.
She carried the philosophy that I—and Jill deVilliers—had pursued in first language acquisition into the next realm: Second language acquisition. It was the philosophy that UG should apply directly to children’s language and L2 language. And the claims should advance linguistic theory itself. But her proposals were extra bold. Her work on tree-construction in L2 was at a new level of abstraction—which anticipated recent ideas in Minimalism. If the world worked right—she and Martha Young-Ccholten would be credited with them.
She marched forward—just as one should—following ideas where they go, but with grace, determination, no untoward bombast or self-promotion—but straightforward arguments. Her 2011 paper on “Universal Minimal Structure” follows directly from the notion of Minimal merge where Labelling is a separate operation. In her words “[there is] …evidence that reduced structure is an option for all language learners. This points to the conclusion that the possibility of positing reduced structure is an option in the language module, regardless of age.” She shared the vision and took the next steps and became well-known and respected in the L2 field because of it.
Aside from my own children, I am most proud of those talented students that I have had who clearly outdid their professor. Anne is the perfect example.
Her professional accomplishments are matched by her personal virtues—strength, good humor, and devotion marked her commitments. She accompanied me and several others to work in Nicaragua where she helped teach 1stgrade teachers about the legitimacy of dialect (in particular) their own form of Caribbean English.
But most poignant was her role as a parent—together with Inigo—who raised a family despite severe medical challenges.
My admiration for her is unbounded and we will miss her greatly.