This volume includes revised versions of ten of the sixteen presentations at the International Workshop on Valency-changing Derivations, held at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology of the Australian National University, 18–23 August 1997. The position paper for the workshop was Dixon and Aikhenvald's ‘A typology of argument-determined constructions’ (pp. 71–113 of Essays on language function and language type, edited by J. Bybee, J. Haiman and S. Thompson. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997). Contributors were also sent a short paper by Dixon on the semantics of causatives; this was later revised and greatly expanded, and is chapter 2 below.

All of the authors have pursued intensive investigation of languages, most of them rather little-known in the literature. They were asked to write in terms of basic linguistic theory – the cumulative theoretical framework in terms of which most descriptive grammars are cast – and to avoid formalisms (which come and go with such frequency that any statement in terms of them will soon become dated and inaccessible).

We thank all of the authors included here, for taking part in the Workshop, for getting their chapters in on time, for revising them according to recommendations of the editors and of the publisher's referees, and for completing their revisions on schedule.

We are also grateful to Jennifer Elliott, Administrator of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, who organized the Workshop with care and flair, coordinated the gathering of papers, and prepared a collated list of abbreviations. To Suzanne Kite, who prepared the indices. And to Kate Brett, our Cambridge editor – sympathetic and yet firm – who played a critical role in getting this volume into its present shape.