Partee Awarded Honorary Doctorate from University of Amsterdam

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Barbara Partee, Distinguished Professor emerita of linguistics and philosophy, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Amsterdam on Jan. 8 for her contribution to the development of formal semantics in natural language.

The award was presented during the university’s 386th Dies Natalis ceremony.

A pioneer in the field of semantics, Partee was in the first class of linguistics Ph.D. students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied with the legendary linguist Noam Chomsky. As a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1965-72, Partee encountered the logician Richard Montague. Her research soon turned to the challenge of synthesizing Chomsky’s syntax with Montague’s semantics.

In 1972, Partee became one of the first faculty members of the newly formed UMass Amherst department of linguistics, at the time one of the first departments in the country to be dedicated to the study of formal linguistic theory. She served as head of the department from 1987-93.

Over the past four decades, UMass Amherst has developed an international reputation as a major center for work in theoretical, experimental and field linguistics, due in no small part to the foundations Partee helped build.

She retired in 2004, but continues to teach part-time. Her influence in this domain of linguistics continues.

Partee was awarded an honorary doctor of humane letters by the University of Chicago in 2014.