Computational Psycholinguistics

I want to begin by expressing my deep appreciation to the Nominating and Executive Committees and the Association at large for this tremendous honor. I am especially proud to join my collaborators and friends who previously received the Lifetime Achievement Award: Bill Woods, Martin Kay, Lauri Karttunen, and Joan Bresnan. They have profoundly influenced the contributions for which I think I am being recognized today, as have many other colleagues and students that I have worked with closely over the years. I will follow the tradition set down by most previous LTA recipients by describing how events in my personal history propelled me towards the concepts, theories, and algorithms I have helped to develop and have become known for. This historical perspective is quite different from a paper setting forth some current technical results. Some former recipients, Martin Kay for example, were intrigued by language from a very early age. That was not the case for me. I started as an undergraduate at the University of California Berkeley with a major concentration in physics. I decided at one point that physical reality was a little too messy, and I also discovered that I was not interested in spending long hours in a laboratory. So after a year or two I switched to math. That carried me forward to the middle of my fourth and final year, when I began to contemplate a future as a mathematician. That also seemed a little dry and unappealing. I thought I should look around, even at that late date, and maybe find a specialization that was a little more social and for me, a little more engaging.