Page 63 - Fall 2006

Ignatius G. Mattingly (1927–2004)
Ignatius G. Mattingly, Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, Professor Emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories, died on 5 March 2004 at the age of 76. His scientific work focused on speech synthesis, and on speech perception and its links to production and reading; he was, however, also a literary scholar and writer.
Mattingly was born in Detroit, MI, in 1927
but lived most of his life in Connecticut. He
obtained a B.A. from Yale University in 1947,
an M.A. in Linguistics from Harvard
University in 1959, and a Ph.D. from Yale in
English in 1968. While working for the
National Security Agency (NSA), he became
acquainted with Haskins Laboratories and
subsequently left NSA to join the research staff
at Haskins and the faculty at the University of Connecticut, where he worked for more than thirty years. One year prior to his move to Connecticut, Mattingly was a guest researcher at the Joint Speech Research Unit in London, where he worked on synthesis of intonation by rule.
Mattingly also worked on theories of speech production and perception, the reading process and writing systems. Following the publication of Modularity of Mind, he wrote on modularity and speech. His writings provide insight into the integration of the motor theory of speech perception with later-emerging articulatory phonology. His contributions to the study of reading addressed the nature of writing systems, both synchronically and diachronically, and of the relation between speech and reading.
Mattingly leaves behind his wife, Emily, two children,
Matthew and Tanzy, five grandchildren, and a seemingly infinite list of friends, stu- dents, and colleagues who were the recipi- ents of his keen insights, his nurturing and kindness, and his joie de vivre. We close with some lines from a poem written by Ignatius, himself, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Haskins Laboratories.
"Like most other animals in Creation We humans are born with a
specialization.
The fish in the sea have pheromones That stimulate their erogenous zones. The barn owl's got such peculiar ears That it's able to see whatever it hears. The bat's got sonar, the bird's got
song,
The spider's got webs, and if we're not wrong,
The thing that's remarkable and unique About human beings is that they speak.
So to bring to an end this lengthy apology, And answer the question that you were askin', And call a truce
With Dr. Seuss, It's all biology Here at Haskins."
Rena A. Krakow
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Doug H. Whalen
Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT and National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA
ASA has been notified of the recent deaths of the following Society members:
Richard K. Cook, Framingham, MA John G. Harris, Evanston, IL Nicholas Rott, Stanford, CA
Wayne Rudmose, Austin, TX Frederick N. Spiess, San Diego, CA Bill G. Watters, Glouscester, MA
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