astronomy

Tom Wasow

Tom Wasow is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tom Wasow rather than just read about it. In short: Thomas A. Wasow is Professor of Linguistics, emeritus, and the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy, emeritus at Stanford University.

Key takeaways

Tom Wasow belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tom Wasow to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tom Wasow from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Thomas A. Wasow is Professor of Linguistics, emeritus, and the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy, emeritus at Stanford University. Wasow did his undergraduate studies in mathematics at Reed College, graduating in 1967. He earned his Ph.D. in linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972, and joined the Stanford faculty in 1973. At Stanford, he was a co-founder of the Center for the Study of Language and Information and directed it from 1986 to 1987 and 2006 to 2007. He served a four-year term as Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Stanford beginning in 1987, another four-year term as Associate Dean of Graduate Policy beginning in 1996, was chair of the faculty senate for the 2003-4 academic year, chaired the linguistics department from 2007 to 2010 and 2011 to 2014, and served as Academic Secretary to the University from 2017 to 2024. He has won Stanford's Rhodes Prize and Dinkelspiel Prize for his leadership of the Symbolic Systems program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate major he directed for thirteen years. He was appointed to the Lewis professorship in 2008. In 2015 he was named a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America and in 2019 he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also an avid bicyclist, and has been active combating homelessness and developing low-income housing in the Palo Alto area. Tom Wasow's father was the mathematician Wolfgang R. Wasow.

Bibliography Wasow, Thomas (1979), Anaphora in generative grammar, SIGLA, 2, Ghent, ISBN 978-90-6439-162-0 Wasow, Thomas; Center for the Study of Language and Information (U.S.) (2002), Postverbal behavior, CSLI lecture notes, no. 145, CSLI, ISBN 978-1-57586-401-3 Sag, Ivan A; Wasow, Thomas; Bender, Emily (2003), Syntactic theory : a formal introduction, CSLI lecture notes, no. 152, Center for the Study of Language and Information, ISBN 9781575864006

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tom Wasow

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tom Wasow claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tom Wasow before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tom Wasow ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tom Wasow

In research: Tom Wasow appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tom Wasow in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tom Wasow is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American linguist stubs, Linguists from the United States, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tom Wasow outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tom Wasow in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tom Wasow means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tom Wasow out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tom Wasow in simple terms?

Thomas A. Wasow is Professor of Linguistics, emeritus, and the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy, emeritus at Stanford University.

Why does Tom Wasow matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tom Wasow?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tom Wasow.