| Sige-Yuki Kuroda | |
| Birth Date: | 1 August 1934 |
| Birth Place: | Tokyo |
| Workplaces: | University of California, San Diego |
| Alma Mater: | Tokyo University (BS, BA), Nagoya University (MS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD) |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Noam Chomsky |
| Thesis Title: | Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language |
| Thesis Year: | 1965 |
, also known as S.-Y. Kuroda, was Professor Emeritusand Research Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego.Although a pioneer in the application of Chomskyan generative syntax tothe 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.
Kuroda was born into a prominent family of mathematicians in Japan.His grandfather, Teiji Takagi, was a student of David Hilbert. Kuroda himselfreceived 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 (1965), under Chomsky's supervision.
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.[1]
In 2017, the Linguistic Society of America established a fellowship in his honor. It provides funding to Japanese students to attend the Linguistic Society's biennial summer institute.[2]