Charles Fillmore
Also known as Charles J. Fillmore
Charles Fillmore was a linguist whose work on case grammar and frame semantics led to FrameNet, a resource whose data are used in computational linguistics, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence. After undergraduate study in Minnesota and service in the U.S. Army in Japan, he earned a doctorate at the University of Michigan, taught at Ohio State, and joined Berkeley in 1971. He served as president of the Linguistic Society of America in 1991 and led the 1997 launch of FrameNet at the International Computer Science Institute. The Association for Computational Linguistics gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012; he died in 2014.
Timeline
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1951–1971
From service to Berkeley
After undergraduate study in Minnesota and U.S. Army service in Japan, he earned a Michigan doctorate, taught at Ohio State, and joined Berkeley's faculty in 1971.
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1968
Arguing from semantic roles
In “The case for case,” he links sentence structure to semantic role classes.
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1980s
Linking frames and lexicons
During the 1980s, he connects frame semantics with lexicography.
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1991
Leading the language society
He serves as president of the Linguistic Society of America.
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1997
Launching FrameNet
He leads FrameNet's launch at the International Computer Science Institute, building on his frame semantics and lexicography work.
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2012
An award from the ACL
The Association for Computational Linguistics gives him its Lifetime Achievement Award.
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2014
A resource for language AI
FrameNet is an on-line dictionary with more than 12,000 English words in more than 1,100 semantic frames. Its data are widely used in computational linguistics, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence.
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2014
His final year
He died in 2014 as professor emeritus at UC Berkeley.
Sources and credits
Photo: lx.berkeley.edu; Charles J. Fillmore (1929-2014) | Linguistics; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: lx.berkeley.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.