Tom Wasow is a Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, and Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He earned his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. Wasow joined the Stanford faculty in 1973 and has been active in both the Linguistics and Philosophy departments. His administrative contributions include chairing the Department of Linguistics and serving as Academic Secretary to the University for a seven-year term, which concluded in June 2024. As Academic Secretary, he served as secretary, legislative archivist, institutional memory, and parliamentarian to the Faculty Senate, Academic Council, and its committees, and managed the annual elections of faculty to the Senate and Advisory Board.

Wasow's scholarly work centers on syntax, psycholinguistics, and the relationship between linguistic competence and performance in language use. He has made significant contributions to Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) and empirical studies of syntactic variation, including word order, heavy NP shift, verb-particle constructions, and ambiguity resolution. Among his major publications are the influential textbook Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction, second edition (with Ivan A. Sag and Emily Bender, CSLI Publications, 2003); Postverbal Behavior (CSLI Publications, 2002); "Processing" and "The Evolution of HPSG" (in HPSG – A Handbook, Language Science Press, 2021, with co-authors); "Lessons from the (English) Auxiliary System" (Journal of Linguistics, 2018, with Sag et al.); "Flexible Processing and the Design of Grammar" (Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2015, with Sag); "Ambiguity Avoidance is Overrated" (in Ambiguity: Language and Communication, 2015); "Lexical Variation in Relativizer Frequency" (2011); and "Intensive and Quotative ALL: Something Old, Something New" (American Speech, 2007, with Rickford et al.). In recognition of his impact, a festschrift titled Language from a Cognitive Perspective: Grammar, Usage and Processing was published in his honor (CSLI Publications). Wasow's research integrates theoretical modeling with corpus-based and experimental data, influencing contemporary debates in generative grammar and usage-based linguistics.

Professional Email: wasow@stanford.edu