Luigi Rizzi

Dear Noam,

Over forty years or so, I had numerous opportunities to talk with you about science and many other topics, and I have vivid memories of such occasions. Nothing can be more exciting in science than looking at things for the first time from a new perspective, and many appointments with you over the years gave me precisely that excitement. Going home full of enthusiasm about the new ideas we had discussed, I could not refrain from thinking of the contemporaries of the founding fathers of modern science, those who had the opportunity to discuss new ideas with Galileo, Newton, or Darwin, and the privilege they had. I think that my generation, and several other generations of linguists, were lucky to have the chance to talk with you. I am grateful to you for offering us new perspectives to look at language and mind, and for many other things.