Jerry Katz's obituary

[Janet Werker]

Dear Everyone,
Just sharing what was in the NY Times.
Janet

February 26, 2002

Jerrold J. Katz, 69, Linguistics Expert and CUNY Professor
STUART LAVIETES
 
 
errold J. Katz, a philosopher of language who helped establish the reputation of the graduate philosophy program of the City University of New York, died on Feb. 7 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He was 69.

The cause was bladder cancer, the university announced. 

Dr. Katz, a professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Graduate Center of CUNY, began his teaching career at M.I.T. in 1963. He contributed to the development of a contemporary philosophy of language introduced by his colleague at the institute, Noam Chomsky. 

In his book "Semantic Theory" (Harper & Row, 1972), he helped define the relationship between syntax (word arrangement) and semantics (meaning).

He later rejected the Chomskyan approach, which treated linguistics as a branch of psychology. In books like "Language and Other Abstract Objects" (Rowan & Littlefield, 1981), he explored the analogy between linguistics and mathematics and worked to establish a scientific approach to meaning.

Jerrold Jacob Katz was born July 14, 1932, in Washington. In 1954, he got his bachelor's degree from George Washington University. After serving in the Army Counterintelligence Corps from 1954 to 1956, he earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1960. His career at CUNY began in 1975.

He is survived by his wife, Virginia Valian, a professor of psychology and linguistics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, and two children from an earlier marriage, Seth and Jesse Katz.

Dr. Katz's final book, "Sense, Reference and Philosophy," will be published posthumously by the Oxford University Press. Dr. Katz signed the contract with the publisher the day before his eath.