R. M. W. Dixon is Adjunct Professor in the Cairns Institute at James Cook University. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidiñ), 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 theAdjectives 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 hisdetailed 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 is Professor and Research Leader (People and Societies of the Tropics) in the Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Australia. She has worked on descriptive and historical aspects of Berber languages and has published, in Russian, a Grammar of ModernHebrew (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 AGrammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 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 OUP in 2008. Other monographs with OUP are Classifiers: a Typology of Noun Categorization Devices (2000), Language Contact in Amazonia (2002), Evidentiality (2004), and Imperativesand Commands (2010).