Joan W. Bresnan

Sadie Dernham Patek Professor in Humanities Emerita. Leading figure in syntactic theory. Originated the theory of Lexical-Functional Grammar and some of its probabilistic extensions. Conducted quantitative investigations showing that grammar is inherently variable in nature, a highly plastic cognitive system sensitively tuned to the frequencies of the environment. Member of the National Academy of Sciences, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Computational Linguistics, former President of the Linguistic Society of America, an inaugural Fellow of the LSA, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, a Fellow of the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenhiem Fellow, among other distinctions.