Abstract The University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) is an occasional series published by the Penn Graduate Linguistics Society. The series has included volumes of previously unpublished work, or work in progress, by linguists with an ongoing affiliation with the Department, as well as volumes of papers from NWAV and the Penn Linguistics Conference. This volume contains selected papers from New Ways of Analyzing Variation 45 (NWAV 45), held November 3-6, 2016 at Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria. Since Vol. 14.2, PWPL has been an internet-only publication. As of September 2014, the entire back catalog has been digitized and made available on ScholarlyCommons@Penn. Please continue citing PWPL papers or issues as you would a print journal article, though you may also provide the URL of the manuscript. An example is below: Arnson, Shelby and Charlie Farrington. 2016. Twentieth Century Sound Change in Washington DC African American English. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 23.2: Selected Papers from NWAV45, ed. B. Sneller, 1-10. http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol23/iss2/2/. Publication in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) does not preclude submission of papers elsewhere; copyright is retained by the author(s) of individual papers. The PWPL editors can be contacted at: U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Department of Linguistics University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104–6228 working-papers@ling.upenn.edu http://ling.upenn.edu/papers/pwpl.html Betsy Sneller, Issue Editor Recommended Citation Sneller, Betsy. 2017. “Preface.” University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Vol. 23, Iss. 2, Art. 1. Available at: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol23/iss2/1/.