Notes on the contributors xvNicole Kruspe, a Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology,
is currently working on a grammatical description of Cheq Wong, a previously
undescribed Northern Aslian language. Her research focus is on the Aslian (Mon-
Khmer) languages of the Malay Peninsula. She has previously conducted extensive
fieldwork on Southern Aslian languages, completing a comprehensive grammat-
ical description of Semelai for her Ph.D. (A Grammar ofSemelai, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press 2004) and a phonological description and a dictionary of Mah Meri
(Besisi). Research interests include descriptive linguistics, field methods, language
typology, and linguistic anthropology.
Address: Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University, Victoria
3086, Australia; e-mail: [email protected]
Randy J. LaPolla is an Associate Professor at City University of Hong Kong. In
mid-2OO4 he takes up the position of Professor of Linguistics at La Trobe Univer-
sity. His work mainly revolves around the recording and analysis, including his-
torical comparative analysis, of Sino-Tibetan languages, particularly Qiang and
Dulong-Rawang, and attempting to answer the question of why the languages of
this family are the way they are. A general interest in typology and pragmatics in-
forms this work. Major publications include Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Func-
tion (with R. D. Van Valin, Jr., Cambridge University Press 1997) and the edited vol-
ume, The Sino-Tibetan Languages (with G. Thurgood, Routledge 2003).
Address: Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of
Hong Kong, Tai Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong; e-mail: [email protected]
Paulette Levy is a founding member of the Seminario de Lenguas Indigenas at the
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, a centre devoted to the study of Meso-
american Indian languages. She has conducted fieldwork on Papantla Totonac
since 1982. Her research interests cover all aspects of Mesoamerican Indian lan-
guages, linguistic typology, syntax, semantics, and anthropological linguistics. She
has published La completivas objeto en espanol (Mexico: COLMEX1983), Fonologia
del Monaco de Papantla, Veracruz (Mexico: UNAM 1987), Archive de Lenguas in-
digenas de Mexico: Totonaco de Papantla, Veracruz (Mexico: COLMEX 1990), and
she is the editor of Del cora al amaya yucateco: Estudios linguisticos sobre algunas
lenguas mexicanas (Mexico: UNAM 2002).
Address: Sierra Madre 450, Mexico DF 11000, Mexico; e-mail: paulette@servidor.
unam.mx
Fiona Me Laughlin is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and African Languages
at the University of Florida. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Senegal on
the phonology, morphology, and sociolinguistics of the northern Atlantic lan-
guages Wolof, Pulaar, and Seereer-Siin. She has published articles on noun classi-
fication, reduplication, and consonant mutation, and contributed an essay to Lin-
guistic Fieldwork (Newman and Ratliff (eds.), Cambridge University Press 2001).