DR SANDOR HERVEY, Hungarian-born linguist, Dr Sandor Hervey, who spent almost 30 years at St Andrews University, including a time as chairman of its Department of Linguistics, has died suddenly in Cambridge.

Aged 55, he resided in Cupar, and was on a one-year programme of research leave in his home country, but had been visiting his mother in Cambridge when he took ill.

A reader in linguistics at St Andrews, he joined the university staff as a research assistant in 1969 and, following an exchange lectureship to the Institute of General Linguistics at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, was appointed a research fellow at St Andrews in 1971.

The following year he took up a lectureship before being appointed a reader in linguistics in 1981.

Dr Hervey was a visiting professor to Scarborough College, Toronto, and Laval University, Quebec, in the early 1980s, before being redeployed to social anthropology at St Andrews University on the closure of the department of linguistics.

He retained his position as reader in the subject with responsibility for continued teaching of courses, and later spent periods at the universities of Leeds, Cambridge, Grenoble, and Montpellier.

In 1978 he was the acting chairman of the department of linguistics at St Andrews and between 1972-84 he served two separate terms of office on the Higher Degrees Committee and the Faculty Planning Committee.

Dr Hervey was for four years the arts' constituency representative on the St Andrews Senate and served on the business committee of its General Council from 1983-87.

Convener of the Board of Studies in philosophy from 1988-90, he was a current member of the board of management of the Institute of Amerindian Studies at St Andrews, and also served for a time as the acting chairman of the department of social anthropology.

A member of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, Dr Hervey also held membership of the Societas Linguistica Europaea and the Scots Philosophical Club.

Dr Hervey published a number of papers, review articles etc, and also co-authored works with colleagues. He also lectured in many parts of the world.

He graduated BA Hons (First Class) in Chinese from Oxford University in 1966, and was awarded an MA Oxon in 1969 and a D.Phil (Oxon) two years later.

He is survived by his wife, the Rev Diana Hervey, and five children.

A memorial service will be held at St Andrews University in October.