Formal Slavic Linguistics is concerned with explicit description of prosody, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, information structure and language acquisition or impairments of language (aphasia) of Slavic languages within a certain theoretical framework of Principles and Parameters (Chomsky 1995 passim). But the two parts also illustrate the diversity of approaches we use in attempting to reflect the entire range of subfields within a given theoretical framework of cognitive science.

The Editors: Peter Kosta is Professor of Westslavic Linguistics and Chair at the Slavic Department at Potsdam University. Joanna B?aszczak is Psychological and Technical Assistant of the Theory of Grammar (Syntax and Morphology) at the General Linguistics Department at Potsdam University. Jens Frasek is Assistant of Westslavic Linguistics at the Slavic Department at Potsdam University. Ljudmila Geist is Ph.D. student at the University in Berlin and employed as a research assistant in the DFG-sponsored project Semantic Interfaces: Copula-predicative constructions at the Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin. Marzena ?ygis is research assistant at the Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin and involved in the project The phonological word. In 2001 the editors organized the Fourth European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL IV) in Potsdam. The FDSL-conferences take place biannually in Leipzig and Potsdam.