Henry Kucera
Encyclopedia
Henry Kučera, born Jindřich Kučera (15 February 1925 – 20 February 2010) was a Czech
linguist who was a pioneer in corpus linguistics
and linguistic software
.
Kucera was born in the former Czechoslovakia
in the village of Třebařov
(between Pardubice
and Olomouc
). When the Communists came to power in 1948
, his studies in philosophy and linguistics at Charles University
in the Czech capital of Prague
were interrupted. He was forced to leave Czechoslovakia in April of '48 when it became clear that his political writings had placed him at risk of detention by the Communist authorities.
He first travelled to occupied Germany where he worked for Czech refugee organizations assisting in relocation programs and working under the supervision of the US CIC
(Counter Intelligence Corps) while preparing Czech passports for refugees. His mentor at that time was Pavel Tigrid
who would be a longtime friend and who later became the minister of culture for Czechoslovakia following the Velvet Revolution
in 1989.
When an opportunity to emigrate to the United States came in 1949 he chose to take the opportunity and traveled aboard the USS General C. H. Muir to New York
.
After receiving his PhD from Harvard University
he taught at University of Florida
at Gainesville for two years. Kučera returned to Harvard in 1954 as a research fellow. The next year Assistant Professor Kucera received an appointment at Brown University
where he was promoted to full professor in 1965. He spent the rest of his teaching career there and retired in 1990 with, among other honors, a black tie retirement party and the publication of a Festschrift.
He married Jacqueline Kučera (née Marie Jacqueline Fortin) (1928–2008) in 1951. The Kučeras settled in Providence, RI and Freedom, NH. They had three children, Tomaš Kučera (b. 1968), John Kučera (b.1970-d.1970), and Edward Kučera (b. 1970).
While at Brown he was able to further pursue his interest in linguistics. At Brown, he became interested in the computational analysis of human language, though at the time there were scarcely any tools for this type of research.
In 1963–1964, Kučera collaborated with W. Nelson Francis to create the Brown Corpus of Standard American English, generally known as the Brown Corpus
. This was a carefully compiled selection of current American English as published during the year 1961 in 1000 sources on a wide variety of subjects. It has been very widely used in computational linguistics, and was for many years among the most-cited resources in the field. Kučera and Francis themselves subjected it to a variety of computational analyses from which derived their classic work Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English (1967), followed by Francis and Kučera's Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Grammar (1982).
Shortly thereafter, Boston publisher Houghton-Mifflin approached Kučera to supply a million word, three-line citation base for its new American Heritage Dictionary
. This ground-breaking new dictionary, which first appeared in 1969, was the first dictionary to be compiled using corpus linguistics for word frequency and other information.
Kučera wrote one of the first spell checker
s over Christmas, 1981, in PL/I
for VAX
machines, at the behest of Digital Equipment Corporation
. It was a simple, rapid spelling verifier. Further development resulted in "International Correct Spell" a spell checking program which was used on word processing systems such as Word Star, and Microsoft Word in addition to numerous small computer applications. Kučera later oversaw the development of Houghton-Mifflin’s Correct Text grammar checker, which also drew heavily on statistical techniques for analysis. He founded Language Systems Incorporated (LSI), later Language Systems Software Incorporated (LSSI), to manage his software programs and updates until the patents expired in 2002.
In addition to his PhD in Linguistics from Harvard University, Kučera had a doctorate from Charles University in Prague which was restored after the Velvet Revolution ousted the communist rule in Czechoslovakia. He received honorary degrees from Pembroke College
in Providence, RI, Bucknell University
in Lewisburg, PA, and Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He was a member of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa.
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
linguist who was a pioneer in corpus linguistics
Corpus linguistics
Corpus linguistics is the study of language as expressed in samples or "real world" text. This method represents a digestive approach to deriving a set of abstract rules by which a natural language is governed or else relates to another language. Originally done by hand, corpora are now largely...
and linguistic software
Natural language processing
Natural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages; it began as a branch of artificial intelligence....
.
Kucera was born in the former Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in the village of Třebařov
Třebařov
Třebařov is a village and municipality in Svitavy District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic.The municipality covers an area of , and has a population of 966 ....
(between Pardubice
Pardubice
Pardubice is the capital city of the Pardubice Region and lies on the river Elbe, 65 miles east of Prague. Pardubice has an antique centre square and old town, with many restaurants that stay open until late in the evening. There is an old Tower and a recently renovated Castle...
and Olomouc
Olomouc
Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. The city is located on the Morava river and is the ecclesiastical metropolis and historical capital city of Moravia. Nowadays, it is an administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and sixth largest city in the Czech Republic...
). When the Communists came to power in 1948
Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948
The Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in over four decades...
, his studies in philosophy and linguistics at Charles University
Charles University in Prague
Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe and is also considered the earliest German university...
in the Czech capital of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
were interrupted. He was forced to leave Czechoslovakia in April of '48 when it became clear that his political writings had placed him at risk of detention by the Communist authorities.
He first travelled to occupied Germany where he worked for Czech refugee organizations assisting in relocation programs and working under the supervision of the US CIC
Counter Intelligence Corps
The Counter Intelligence Corps was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and, in 1967, by the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency...
(Counter Intelligence Corps) while preparing Czech passports for refugees. His mentor at that time was Pavel Tigrid
Pavel Tigrid
Pavel Tigrid was a writer, publisher and author of Czech origin. He is considered one of the most important personalities of the exile Czech journalism.-Biography:He left Czechoslovakia as a young man to evade the Nazis...
who would be a longtime friend and who later became the minister of culture for Czechoslovakia following the Velvet Revolution
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
in 1989.
When an opportunity to emigrate to the United States came in 1949 he chose to take the opportunity and traveled aboard the USS General C. H. Muir to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
After receiving his PhD from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
he taught at University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
at Gainesville for two years. Kučera returned to Harvard in 1954 as a research fellow. The next year Assistant Professor Kucera received an appointment at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
where he was promoted to full professor in 1965. He spent the rest of his teaching career there and retired in 1990 with, among other honors, a black tie retirement party and the publication of a Festschrift.
He married Jacqueline Kučera (née Marie Jacqueline Fortin) (1928–2008) in 1951. The Kučeras settled in Providence, RI and Freedom, NH. They had three children, Tomaš Kučera (b. 1968), John Kučera (b.1970-d.1970), and Edward Kučera (b. 1970).
While at Brown he was able to further pursue his interest in linguistics. At Brown, he became interested in the computational analysis of human language, though at the time there were scarcely any tools for this type of research.
In 1963–1964, Kučera collaborated with W. Nelson Francis to create the Brown Corpus of Standard American English, generally known as the Brown Corpus
Brown Corpus
The Brown University Standard Corpus of Present-Day American English was compiled in the 1960s by Henry Kucera and W. Nelson Francis at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island as a general corpus in the field of corpus linguistics...
. This was a carefully compiled selection of current American English as published during the year 1961 in 1000 sources on a wide variety of subjects. It has been very widely used in computational linguistics, and was for many years among the most-cited resources in the field. Kučera and Francis themselves subjected it to a variety of computational analyses from which derived their classic work Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English (1967), followed by Francis and Kučera's Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Grammar (1982).
Shortly thereafter, Boston publisher Houghton-Mifflin approached Kučera to supply a million word, three-line citation base for its new American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is an American dictionary of the English language published by Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969...
. This ground-breaking new dictionary, which first appeared in 1969, was the first dictionary to be compiled using corpus linguistics for word frequency and other information.
Kučera wrote one of the first spell checker
Spell checker
In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...
s over Christmas, 1981, in PL/I
PL/I
PL/I is a procedural, imperative computer programming language designed for scientific, engineering, business and systems programming applications...
for VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
machines, at the behest of Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
. It was a simple, rapid spelling verifier. Further development resulted in "International Correct Spell" a spell checking program which was used on word processing systems such as Word Star, and Microsoft Word in addition to numerous small computer applications. Kučera later oversaw the development of Houghton-Mifflin’s Correct Text grammar checker, which also drew heavily on statistical techniques for analysis. He founded Language Systems Incorporated (LSI), later Language Systems Software Incorporated (LSSI), to manage his software programs and updates until the patents expired in 2002.
In addition to his PhD in Linguistics from Harvard University, Kučera had a doctorate from Charles University in Prague which was restored after the Velvet Revolution ousted the communist rule in Czechoslovakia. He received honorary degrees from Pembroke College
Pembroke College (Brown University)
Pembroke College in Brown University was the coordinate women's college for Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1891 and closed in 1971.-Founding and early history:...
in Providence, RI, Bucknell University
Bucknell University
Bucknell University is a private liberal arts university located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 30 miles southeast of Williamsport and 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The university consists of the College of...
in Lewisburg, PA, and Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He was a member of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa.
External links
- Profile of Henry Kucera (from Language Industry Monitor).
- Partial list of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server.
- Obituary of Henry Kučera