ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR is Professor of Linguistics at the Uniersity at Buffalo. His research is focused on theoretical linguistics, especially syntactic theory and theories of the acquisition of syntax and the role of syntactic theory in models of sentence processing. He is the primary developer of the theory of Role and Reference Grammar. He has done research on two American Indian languages, Lakhota (Siouan) and Yatee Zapotec (Oto-Manguean). Together with Daniel L. Everett (University of Manchester) he has an NSF-funded project on information structure and syntax in selected Amazonian languages. He has recently begun a project with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, on Neurotypology, which involves Role and Reference Grammar and language processing. Van Valin has published articles on syntax, universal grammar, language typology, language acquisition, and neurolinguistics, and his most recent book is v (Cambridge UP, 2005).