S.-Y. Kuroda


Sige-Yuki Kuroda, aka S.-Y. Kuroda, was Professor Emeritus
and Research Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego.
Although a pioneer in the application of Chomskyan generative syntax to
the Japanese language, he is known for the broad range of his work across the language sciences. For instance, in formal language theory, the Kuroda normal form for context-sensitive grammars bears his name.

Early life and career

Kuroda was born into a prominent family of mathematicians in Japan.
His grandfather, Teiji Takagi, was a student of David Hilbert. Kuroda himself
received degrees in mathematics and linguistics from the University of Tokyo.
In 1962, he entered MIT with the first graduating class from the new Department of Linguistics,
where he wrote his seminal dissertation, Generative Studies in the Japanese Language
under Chomsky's supervision.

Important publications

In 2013, the Association for Mathematics of Language, an affiliate of the Association for Computational Linguistics, established the S.-Y. Kuroda Prize to honor "work that has spawned a broad area of research" within mathematical linguistics. The prize has been awarded at most biennially.