About the Author(s)

R. M. W. Dixon was co-founder of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidin), in addition to A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian (University of Chicago Press, 1988), The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia (OUP, 2004) and A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (OUP, 2005). His works on typological theory include Where Have all the Adjectives Gone? and other Essays in Semantics and Syntax (Mouton, 1982) and Ergativity (CUP, 1994). The Rise and Fall of Languages (CUP, 1997) expounded a punctuated equilibrium model for language development; this is the basis for his detailed case study Australian Languages: their Nature and Development (CUP, 2002). The first two volumes of his magisterial work, Basic Linguistic Theory , are due to be published by OUP in 2009.

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald was co-founder of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology. She has worked on descriptive and historical aspects of Berber languages and has published, in Russian, a grammar of Modern Hebrew (1990). She is a major authority on languages of the Arawak family, from northern Amazonia, and has written grammars of Bare (1995, based on work with the last speaker who has since died), and Warekena (1998), plus A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia (CUP, 2003; paperback 2007), in addition to essays on various typological and areal features of South American languages. Her lengthy grammar, The Manambu Language from East Sepik, Papua New Guinea was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Other monographs with OUP are Classifiers: a Typology of Noun Categorization Devices (2000, paperback 2003), Language Contact in Amazonia (2002), Evidentiality (2004, paperback 2006), and Imperatives and Commands (due in 2009).