• Happiest of birthdays to you David!
    Diane Massam
  • Happy Birthday! Your wonderful ability to bring humor to every class and lecture is an inspiration! Keep it up!
    Tom Roeper
  • Happy Birthday, David! Such an honor to work with you. I’m so sorry I can’t be at your big bash. Have a great time.
    Shigeru Miyagawa
  • Dear David,
    It has been many years since I met you the last time. Yes, time flies. All of my best wishes for your very meaningful and Happy Birthday!
    Jae-Woong Choe
  • с днем рождения “досадные набор” and keep on making us laugh and think about important things
    Jane Simpson
  • Happy Birthday, David! I wish you a great time.
    Marta Abrusan
  • Dear David,
    Happy Birthday! Thank you for your host at MIT. I was deeply impressed with your bright smile and kind arrangement for the movie ‘Arrival.’ I also admire your talent of music and syntax, of course. [ʂəŋ rʅ kʰuaj lɤ]!
    Ting Huang
  • Tyijikña ajabilel David!
    Jessica Coon
  • Happy Birthday, David! And a big ‘thank you’ for being such an amazing teacher. It was a privilege.
    Pilar P. Barbosa
  • Happy Birthday, David! Zorionak!
    Karlos Arregi
  • Mahtuang kasu malinaskal, David!
    Iris Wu
  • Happy birthday David! I’m still grateful that you were on my committee back in 82-83, when the world was young and so were we (and there was much better pop music around).
    Ian Roberts
  • Happy birthday, David. I wish you great health, great happiness, and great success. I am sorry I can’t be at the party, and I am also sorry for looking at you too much in class.
    Tue Trinh
  • Happy birthday! I was there last year…
    Rita Manzini
  • Happy Birthday David! I can’t make it to the party, but I wish you all the best for the next 60.
    Benjamin Bruening
  • Many happy returns of the day! Wishing you all the best for the year ahead, with many thanks for years past.
    Bronwyn Bjorkman
  • Happy birthday David! I feel so lucky to have met you and got into linguistics. Have a great one. 生日快乐!
    Danfeng Wu
  • Happy Birthday! I could fill the character limit of this comment field with praise of what a fabulous advisor you are. But I’ll limit myself to this: now that I am advising PhD students on my own, not a day goes by where I don’t ask myself, “How would David respond?” For me, you are the standard bearer.
    Omer Preminger
  • С днем рождения David! Looking forward to the workshop, and to more intellectual (and musical!) adventures in the future!
    Roger Levy
  • Most welcome to the club. It has been a pleasure to go through so much with you, sometimes at a distance, and sometimes at very close range. What’s next?
    Gennaro Chierchia
  • Happy birthday David! Thank you for all your energy and patience and guidance. I wish I could be there for the workshop but alas I’ll be busy teaching on the other side of the world — which incidentally is in large part thanks to you as well. Here’s to 60 more!
    mitcho
  • Happy birthday, David! Thank you for being such a fantastic advisor these past few years. Nalliuniqsiutsiarit!
    Michelle Yuan
  • Happy Birthday, David! You are so great that I could never catch you up.
    Masatoshi Koizumi
  • Дорогой Дэвид!
    примите, пожалуйста, сердечные пожелания благополучия, здоровья и творческих успехов — на радость всем, кто Вас знает и любит, всем, кого любите Вы, и на благо лингвистики, в том числе и российской, для которой Вы сделали больше, чем сама она могла бы сделать для себя!
    С днем рождения!
    Сергей
    Sergei Tatevosov
  • Happy Birthday, David! Thanks to you, I can still manage to be in this field. It was the first class at UMass I had that truly inspired me to pursue work on linguistics, and you were teaching it. Looking forward to seeing you in September!
    Koichi Tateishi
  • Happy birthday, David! I wish I could join the party and express in person my gratitude for your guidance and mentorship. Hope to see you sometime soon!
    Shin Ishihara
  • Happy birthday, fijne verjaardag! Your work has been an inspiration for me, and even though I have moved from research to teaching, it means a lot to me that you were my advisor during my semester at MIT and that you were willing to be on my thesis committee. All the best for the years to come!
    Janneke ter Beek
  • Dear David,
    A very happy (even if slightly belated) birthday! Bis 120!!
    Here is a small birthday present–thanks for introducing me to this aspect of Schubert.
    Jaklin Kornfilt
  • Happiest of birthdays to you, David! I know I’ve said this so many times, but just to say it again: you remain my key role model as both a scientist and a teacher/advisor. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I was sitting in your office; those days are still as vibrant in my memory as they ever were. Sigóowu i yagiyee!
    Seth Cable
  • Feliz Aniversário, David! I feel grateful for all the great conversations we’ve had, about linguistics and otherwise. Thanks a lot, and I’m looking forward to seeing you soon!
    Rafael Nonato
  • Dear David, Happy Birthday! thanks a lot for all your advice and help over more than twenty years. I realized the wisdom of many of the things you said when I was a student only years later.
    Uli Sauerland
  • С днём рождения, Дэвид!
    Спасибо Вам большое за всё, что Вы делаете! За упорное внимание и прозорливость, с которыми Вы вникаете в любую студенческую идею и делаете из неё что-то осмысленное и прекрасное.
    Дмитрий Привознов
  • Happy Birthday, David! Doğum günün kutlu olsun, nice güzel yaşlara!
    Meltem Kelepir
  • Happy Birthday, David. I still remember your 21st birthday. How young we all were, and how young we no longer are. It’s been a joy to have been your friend and (extended) colleague all these years! Enjoy the day!
    Hagit Borer
  • Congratulations on completing 60 years on this planet, and your positive contributions on all of our lives during that time! Van harte gefeliciteerd, en nog vele jaren!
    Jenneke van der Wal
  • Happiest of birthdays! শুভ জন্মদিন! I have warm memories of getting to know you a little bit at the generative grammar school in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, many years ago. I regret not having a chance to study with you more. Congrats on reaching this milestone and for all your contributions to the field!
    Rashad Ullah
  • All the very best, David! It’s amazing how much I’ve learned from you in the brief interactions we’ve had, and I’m eternally grateful for all of it.
    Neil Myler
  • Happy Birthday David,
    I fondly recall meeting you (and Janis) for the first time at UCLA Summer Institute in 1983 and attending your class. You were a great teacher then and still are!!
    Best wishes, Mike Kenstowicz
  • Happy Birthday, David! I always feel very lucky to be your student and it is hard to describe how much I learned from you. Thank you for your insightful comments, intellectual guidance, and warm encouragment. I am looking forward to seeing you soon!
    All the best, Heejeong Ko
  • Happy birthday David! Thank you so much for everything! I will never forget the first class I attended with you, 27 years ago, Girona 1990, and all the classes and discussions later on, at LOT, Blagoevgrad, MIT and Athens. I hope you will enjoy your surprise workshop!
    Elena Anagnostopoulou
  • Dear David,
    Nochmals mein herzlichsten Glückwünsche zum 60er! I am very fortunate to have had you as a teacher, advisor, and mentor. Thanks for always being willing to listen and help!
    Alles Gute für die nächsten 60!
    Susi Wurmbrand
  • Happy Birthday David!
    Susan Rothstein
  • Happy Birthday, David! Here is toasting to the next 60 — Salute!
    Michela Ippolito
  • Happy Birthday once again! Time flies. Just this past summer we walked by the post office where I called you from what was then Leningrad (I still have the telegram you sent me there). Thanks for all your support and encouragement since then! Hope you have a great birthday celebration – sorry I can’t be there.
    Jonathan Bobaljik
  • Happy birthday David! It was a good thing I registered for 24.900 Fall 2012 otherwise I don’t think I would be where I am today (you taught that one in case that was unclear). Thank you for your energy and guidance these past 4 years, and enjoy the celebration!
    Elise Newman
  • Happy birthday, David! Thank you for being such an amazing teacher. You’ve taught me so much about linguistics and about teaching itself. Best wishes for the future.
    Isaac Gould
  • Happy birthday, David!
    Thank you so much for your inspiring classes, insightful discussions, intellectual guidance and support. I wish everything bad gets exfoliated away. All the best for the years to come!
    Very much looking forward to seeing you again soon!
    Vitor Nóbrega
  • Happy birthday, David! Thanks for so many great classes, conversations, and ideas. Congratulations on your 60th, and best wishes for many, many more to come!
    Jeremy and Liuda
  • Happy birthday David! Have a great celebration!
    Artemis Alexiadou
  • Hiep hiep hoera, van harte gefeliciteerd, David! Happy birthday! To a happy and healthy future with many exciting discoveries. Thanks for our meetings that always leave me both puzzled and overly excited to do more work.
    Loes
  • Happy birthday, David. It is so nice to have this opportunity to reunite and celebrate the health and success of you and your family.
    Yoshi Kitagawa
  • Happy birthday! (A bit late as usual.)
    Many thanks after many years for the example you set. For your enthusiasm, receptiveness, freshness of perspective, intellectual playfulness, rigor, encouragement. For the time when you decided to wake me up from a nap by blasting the overture to “H.M.S. Pinafore.”
    As the years pass, the appreciation appreciates. I am never forget the day I feerst meet the great David Pesetsky.
    Orin Percus
  • Happy Birthday, David!
    I think I was your first MIT Ph.D student, but surely not the first to know what a dedicated teacher you have been. You gave me a great model of how supervision should be done, and I remain grateful, especially on behalf of my own students. Stay healthy, so still more of us can be so privileged.
    Phil Branigan
  • I feel so fortunate to have had you as a teacher and a guide for such a long time. And knowing that there is so much to look forward to…how can anybody be that lucky?! Thank you, and happy birthday!
    Danny Fox
  • Happy Birthday, David! I was quite looking forward to this festive event, but a recently broken leg will probably now keep me away. Very best wishes, in any case.
    Carol Neidle
  • Happy Birthday, David!!! Thank you for all the advice, insights and comments over the years! You have always been an inspiration and a role model of how to do and teach syntax.
    Barbara Citko
  • Happy birthday, David! I was very lucky to have you as my supervisor. I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done to me. You are and will be my role model of a teacher, syntactician and linguist. I look forward to seeing you soon at MIT!
    Yusuke Imanishi
  • Happy birthday David! Thank you for being a fantastic advisor these past few years.
    Kenyon Branan
  • Bòn fèt David!
    M ap swete w
    tout sa ki bon
    tout sa ki byen
    tout sa ki bèl
    pou tout tan
    gen tan…
    Michel DeGraff
  • Happy birthday, David!!! I was so fortunate to have you as a teacher and an occasional stand partner. Thank you for being such a wonderful person — you are my role model as a researcher. I hope you’ll have a great time at the conference!
    Ayaka Sugawara
  • Happy birthday, David! Thank you for your amazing classes, for your enthusiasm, for all your insightful comments, for your support and never-ending willingness to help.
    Natasha Ivlieva
  • Happy birthday David. And congratulations on inspiring an event with such a wonderful range of people. I was looking forward to being there, but Mother Nature had other ideas, and my flights were canceled. Repeatedly. You inspired me in many different ways: as a teacher, as a TA supervisor, as the seed for a lifelong research program, and as someone who welcomed unfunded foreigners into your NSF training program. I am very grateful for all of these and more. Sorry that I can’t join the fun today.
    Colin Phillips
  • Happy birthday, David! So sorry to be missing this wonderful event – I had planned to be there, but came down with the flu. Thank you for making me welcome in Linguistics when I was a student in BCS, for your wonderful syntax classes, and for the many rounds of comments you provided on my papers. You taught me how to be a teacher and a mentor – thank you! Wish I could be there.
    Tania Ionin
  • Happy birthday, David! I wanted so badly to come up for your workshop, but I am paying tribute to your avocation instead of your vocation: I’ll be singing in the chorus for the Yale Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Carmina Burana. Enjoy your festivities and your festschrift!
    Jason Zentz
  • Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin!
    Thanks for being an inspiring advisor and an exceptional teacher, who makes it easy for the students to learn from him.
    #syntacticmodels #withoutovertgrammaticalsubject
    Bartosz Wiland
  • Happy birthday David!!! I wish I could have said this in person this weekend.
    I don’t know if my fellow recent graduates feel this, but very often I think of how great it would be to be a student in the program again, and when I think that, your classes are among the first to come to mind.
    Sam Alxatib
  • Happy birthday, David! Thank you so much for inspiring classes and supportive individual meetings. I was very lucky to have you as my syntax teacher, and you had a large impact on my professional development.
    I hope you have a wonderful time at the workshop!
    Wataru Uegaki
  • A very happy, happy birthday, David! If it weren’t for your patient & kind offer to take me in during my time at MIT, my thesis would be shorter & less wild. Have a great one!
    Moreno Mitrović
  • Happy birthday, David!
    Guido Vanden Wyngaerd
  • С днем рожденья! And many happy returns of the day!
    Igor Yanovich
  • Happy birthday David! Wish I could be there. Thanks for everything you have taught and continue to teach me. Here’s to the next such gathering in a couple decades!!
    Heidi Harley
  • Happy birthday, David!! Have a wonderful festive event and keep going strong! May you live to be 100!!
    Barbara Partee
  • Congratulations, David, on such a wonderful celebration — well deserved! I was very sorry that I couldn’t be there in person. You have made so many contributions to our field, in terms of ideas, analyses and mentoring, that one might mistakenly think that you’re turning 120…. I’m delighted that it’s only 60, so that we can all look forward to your continuing to be a dynamic and inspiring presence for many more years to come.
    Thanks for everything! Raffaella Zanuttini
  • Happy Birthday David! Enjoy the celebration!
    Molly Diesing
  • Happy Birthday and happy celebration, David! Sorry I could not be there. Looking forward to reading the Festschrift!
    Maria Polinsky
  • Happy birthday, David! Wish I could be there to help celebrate! You’ve been a wonderful role model and inspiration to so many of us over the years. Looking forward to the next decades!
    All the best, Julie Anne Legate
  • Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, David.
    Thank you for making the MIT linguistics department a place to feel welcome. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, both in and outside of academia. Thank you for being an enthusiastic teacher. And last but not least: Thank you for taking the time to come to the chamber music concerts of a violist!
    All the best, Verena Hehl
  • Dear David:
    Happy birthday! May there be syntax, music, and fun in the many years to come!
    Charles Yang
  • Happy Birthday, David. Congratulations! Thank you for the example of your work, and your powerful, positive teaching. You continue to inspire. The best!
    T. Daniel Seely
  • Happy birthday David! For being an extremely inspirational linguist but also to being so kind to a visiting student at MIT a long time ago, thank you.
    Christina Sevdali
  • Happy birthday David
    Sylvain Bromberger

 

Thank you all for your birthday wishes and memories. It is a true privilege and joy to know all of you, and to help build and sustain this wonderful field of ours with you. Thank you so much!
David Pesetsky