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Nick Clements
open-in-new
<h2 id="career">Career</h2> <p>Clements was born in <a href="/facts/Cincinnati,_Ohio/PcyTWhS4">Cincinnati, Ohio</a>, and educated in <a href="/facts/New_Haven/dRanslgz">New Haven</a>, <a href="/facts/Paris/DrNHpwnA">Paris</a> and <a href="/facts/London/KozCCsy9">London</a>. He received his Ph.D. from the <a href="/facts/School_of_Oriental_and_African_Studies/xQyNNhww">School of Oriental and African Studies</a>, <a href="/facts/University_of_London/spIRAx9B">University of London</a>, in 1973, defending a thesis on the <a href="/facts/Ewe_language/HBzApnmd">Ewe language</a> based on a year of field work in <a href="/facts/Ghana/IkUw32Ya">Ghana</a>. He was a visiting scientist at <a href="/facts/M.I.T./Xk49vNA8">M.I.T.</a> (1973–75) and held appointments as professor at <a href="/facts/Harvard/Lhy9L1cx">Harvard</a> (1975–82) and <a href="/facts/Cornell/FGyXuXeI">Cornell</a> (1982–91) before moving to the <a href="/facts/Centre_National_de_la_Recherche_Scientifique/z8RBcY1j">Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique</a> (C.N.R.S.) in Paris in 1992.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a> </p><p>Clements' main research was in <a href="/facts/Phonology/qWAsvnok">phonology</a> with a special focus on <a href="/facts/African_languages/Nqfy66aE">African languages</a>. He is best known for his research in <a href="/facts/Syllable/Ylt7pyJe">syllable theory</a>, <a href="/facts/Tone_(linguistics)/eprhXrWJ">tone</a> and <a href="/facts/Distinctive_feature/Q8y7Fyc9">feature theory</a> which have contributed to the modern theory of sound patterning in spoken language.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a> At the time of his death, his work was concerned with the principles underlying speech sound inventories across languages (Clements & Ridouane 2011). </p> <h2 id="personal">Personal</h2> <p>He was married to French linguist <a href="/facts/Annie_Rialland/gQBh4NVT">Annie Rialland</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> He died of <a href="/facts/Cancer/PVW6n1D0">cancer</a> in <a href="/facts/Chatham,_Massachusetts/msjnfnEo">Chatham, Massachusetts</a>, at the age of 68.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="books">Books</h2> <ul><li>Clements, G. N. & S. J. Keyser, 1983. <i>CV Phonology: a Generative Theory of the Syllable</i> (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 9), MIT Press, Cambridge, Ma.</li> <li>Halle, Morris & G. N. Clements, 1983. <i>Problem Book in Phonology</i>. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press and Bradford Books.</li> <li>Clements, G. N. & J. Goldsmith, eds., 1984. <i>Autosegmental Studies in Bantu Tone</i>. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter</li> <li>Clements, G. N. & R. Ridouane, eds., 2011. <i>Where do phonological features come from? Cognitive, physical and developmental bases of distinctive speech categories</i>. John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam.</li></ul> <h2 id="other-selected-publications">Other selected publications</h2> <ul><li>Clements, G. N., 1985. "The Geometry of Phonological Features," <i>Phonology Yearbook</i> 2, 225-252</li> <li>Clements, G. N., 1990. "The Role of the Sonority Cycle in Core Syllabification." In John Kingston & M. Beckman, eds., <i>Papers in Laboratory Phonology I</i>, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 283–333</li> <li>Clements, G. N. & Elizabeth Hume, 1995. "The Internal Organization of Speech Sounds" In John Goldsmith, ed., <i>Handbook of Phonological Theory</i>. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 245–306</li> <li>Clements, G. N., 2003. "Feature Economy in Sound Systems", <i>Phonology</i> 20.3, pp. 287–333</li> <li>Clements, G. N. & Annie Rialland, 2008. "Africa as a phonological area". In Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse, eds, <i>A Linguistic Geography of Africa</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 36–85.</li></ul> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> <ul><li><a href="http://nickclements.free.fr">Nick Clements's personal webpage</a></li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160303173533/http://lpp.in2p3.fr/doc_html/remembering-nick-clements-new-ok.html">Remembering G. Nick Clements</a></li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Hyman, Larry. "Phonologist, Africanist, Typologist" (PDF). UC-Berkeley. <a href="http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/phonlab/documents/2010/Clements_LT_Obituary_PLAR.pdf" target="_blank">http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/phonlab/documents/2010/Clements_LT_Obituary_PLAR.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>"Nick Clements Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.se. Retrieved 2018-06-22. <a href="https://scholar.google.se/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=G.+N.+Clements&btnG=" target="_blank">https://scholar.google.se/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=G.+N.+Clements&btnG=</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>"Remembering G. Nick Clements". lpp.in2p3.fr. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2018-06-22. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160303173533/http://lpp.in2p3.fr/doc_html/remembering-nick-clements-new-ok.html" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20160303173533/http://lpp.in2p3.fr/doc_html/remembering-nick-clements-new-ok.html</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Elizabeth Hume, 2009-08-31, Obituary on LINGUIST list. Retrieved 2009-10-01. <a href="https://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-2937/" target="_blank">https://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-2937/</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>