Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Associate Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University in Melbourne. She has published on the Berber languages of North Africa, the Manambu language of New Guinea, and the Arawak languages of South America (grammars of Bare and Warekena have appeared and a comprehensive study of Tariana is almost complete). She is author of A Grammar of Modern Hebrew (1990), and her Grammar of BiblicalHebrew is in press. Her theoretical publications include work on evidentiality and Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization Devices (OUP 2000). She is currently working on language contact and universals of borrowings.R. M. W. Dixon, who is Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, has written grammars of five Australian languages - most notably Dyirbal (1972) and Yidiny (1977) - and of Boumaa Fijian (1988), in addition to A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles (OUP 1991). His theoretical contributions have included work on noun classes, adjective classes, the volume Ergativity (1994), and his acclaimed essay 'The Rise and Fall of Languages' (1997). He iscurrently completing a full-scale comparative study of the Australian lingusitic area, and a comprehensive study of the Jarawara language (Arawá family, Brazil).