I begin the story in medias res, with a May 27th Facebook comment by Probal Dasgupta on a posting of mine:
— PB > AZ: Speaking of the way one pronounces the acronym “AZ”, I’ve been puzzled by the fact that some function words that end in orthographic s in English (as, is, has) use a /z/ while others (us, this) use an /s/. I’ve failed to find a specialist who is generous with their time to tell me the diachronic sequence that led to this … My puzzlement originated in the fact that a friend of mine, in her Indian English, says “us” with a final /z/, definitely not in keeping with what most speakers of Indian English do.
With the help of Elizabeth Closs Traugott — nether of us experts in the phonological history of English or the development of spelling conventions, neither of us able to find an authoritative text or an actual living expert, but both willing to take a shot at some possibly useful speculation — I gave PB some tentative responses. And then came the news from his family that he had died, suddenly and unexpectedly, during the night of June 1st, at the age of 72.
His query to me was characteristic — intellectually curious and open, thoughtful and specific — and showed that he continued to follow my work closely, which is how we came to be (geographically distant) friends: when I was in an unhappy moment of doubt about the value of my research and writing, he sent me a bracing message of appreciation, with specific details, so that I came to think, jokingly, that at least I had a guy in Kolkata.
From this story, you will see his striking humanity, but nothing in that story predicts his passionate political engagement or his steady competence at academic administration.
