Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Joseph F. Eska, Philomen Probert, Michael Weiss, and two anonymous readers for helpful comments on early drafts of this book; to Aaron Rubin for detailed comments on the Hebrew examples, which saved me from many errors; to Shizhe Huang and Anne Martin Montgomery for advice on and correction of the Mandarin examples; to Shizhe Huang for help with the excursus in Lesson 12; to Beth Randall, Ruth Randall, Joe Eska, and Chris Jackson for detailed comments on a late draft; and to two of the original readers for helpful comments on the penultimate draft. All remaining errors and infelicities are of course my own.

I have dedicated this book to Joy Famularo, the high school English teacher who taught me how to write a coherent essay. It seems only fair to acknowledge that I owe a good deal of my academic success to her. Of course she should not be held responsible for any flaws in this book (or in anything else I’ve written); on the contrary, if it weren’t for Mrs. Famularo, you probably wouldn’t be able to read this at all.