Edward Keenan ’59—Pioneering Linguist

Edward Keenan ’59, professor of linguistics at UCLA, won the 2015 S.-Y. Kuroda Prize for Lasting Contributions to the Mathematics of Language. The second prize of its kind, awarded by The Association for Mathematics of Language, recognizes Keenan’s work, which has spawned a broad area of research. Keenan’s 1985 text, Boolean Semantics for Natural Language, is considered a hallmark in establishing the field of mathematical linguistics. According to the official release, Keenan’s prize recognizes “his contributions to the interactions of mathematical logic with linguistics and to formal models of syntax.”