From UvA news: On January 8, the University of Amsterdam will award an honorary degree to Barbara for her contribution to the development of formal semantics in natural language. “Partee played a crucial role in the development of formal semantics of natural language. Partee’s influence in this domain of linguistics continues to be considerable. Formal semantics emerged in the 1960s and 1970s at the intersection of various disciplines. Initial ideas that were essential to the development of formal semantics were developed by logicians and philosophers, especially Richard Montague and David Lewis. Partee, a linguist trained in the tradition of transformational generative grammar (she obtained her PhD under the supervision of Noam Chomsky), was the first linguist to realise the importance of these ideas for the development of semantics within linguistic theory. Not only did she strongly promote the acceptance of formal semantics within linguistics and work to foster the cooperation of logicians, philosophers, and linguists, but also made many substantial contributions to the development of this domain. For example, Partee compiled the first series of articles, including her own, written by logicians and linguists about Montague Grammar, the leading model for formal semantics in the 1970s.” This is Barbara’s fifth honorary doctorate: she is already holding honorary degrees from Swarthmore College, Charles University in Prague, Copenhagen Business School, and the University of Chicago.