This collection of papers is dedicated to Don Walker, a kind, gentle soul, and a man of intelligence and vision whom we have been privileged to know and to work with. The technical content of these papers clearly reflects his guidance and direction; his understanding of the relevance of the theories from related disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy; and his dream of the future availability of electronic documents and the potential of this as a resource for corpus-based analysis. This led to one of his most interdisciplinary roles as a primary mover in the push to standardize the acquisition and tagging of electronic text, an endeavour that brought together people from fields as distinct as publishing, the humanities and computer science. His widespread interests are mirrored in the rich and diverse collection of papers in this volume which portray many different approaches and many different styles. These papers co-exist in harmony here, united by the goal of paying tribute to Don as well as actualizing part of his dream.
