Leonard Talmy

Born on June 17, 1942, he received his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972.

He is a prominent American linguist who has helped found and develop the area of cognitive semantics.

His research has covered typologies and universals of semantic structure; the interaction between semantic structure and lexical, morphological, and syntactic structure; the relation of this to discourse, diachrony, culture, and evolution; and the implications of all this material for conceptual organization and cognitive theory.

His pioneering and innovative work has been highly influential globally, with over 35,000 citations of it.

He was the recipient of the 2012 Gutenberg Research Award and 10,000 Euro prize from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany, for outstanding contributions to research in the area of linguistics.