This is the most comprehensive survey ever published of auxiliary verb constructions, as in 'he could have been going to drink it' and 'she does eat cheese'. Drawing on a database of over 800 languages Dr Anderson examines their morphosyntactic forms and semantic roles. He investigates and explains the historical changes leading to the cross-linguistic diversity of inflectional patterns, and he presents his results within a new typological framework. The book's impressive range includes data on variation within and across languages and language families. In addition to examining languages in Africa, Europe, and Asia the author presents analyses of languages in Australasia and the Pacific and in North, South, and Meso-America. In doing so he reveals much that is new about the language families of the world and makes an important contribution to the understanding of their nature and evolution. His book will interest scholars and researchers in language typology, historical and comparative linguistics, syntax, and morphology.

The Munda Verb is a unique book on the typology of the verb in the Munda language family, and the first of its kind on any language family of the Indian subcontinent. The author painstakingly works out nearly all the details of the morphology of the verb in each modern Munda language and offers a description of the typology of the Munda verbal systems both individually and collectively. The author uses a large amount of data from modern Munda languages, as well as an extensive cross-linguistic corpus offering comparisons from genetically unrelated languages such as Fox, Amele, Kinyarwanda, Luyia, Takelma, Tonkawa, Burushaski, or Tangut where relevant. Points of note include the unusual incorporation system of South Munda Sora and the elaborate and complex system of verb agreement attested in the Kherwarian Munda languages. Further, the author discusses models for a Proto-Munda verbal system and problems in its reconstruction at various points throughout. This book is of great interest to specialists working on the Munda languages, South Asian linguistics, language typology, historical linguistics and to scholars of both morphology as well as syntax.

The Munda group of languages of the Austroasiatic family are spoken within central and eastern India by almost ten million people. To date, they are the least well-known and least documented languages of the Indian subcontinent. This unprecedented and original work draws together a distinguished group of international experts in the field of Munda language research and presents current assessments of a wide range of typological and comparative-historical issues, providing agendas for future research. Representing the current state of Munda Linguistics, this volume provides detailed descriptions of almost all of the languages in the family, in addition to a brief chapter discussing the enigmatic Nihali language.

The Munda group of languages of the Austroasiatic family are spoken by so-called 'tribals' in central and eastern India. They are the least well-known and most poorly documented languages of the Indian subcontinent. This work - unprecedented and original - draws together a distinguished group of international experts in the field of Munda language research, presents current assessments of a wide range of typological and comparative-historical issues, and offers agendas for future research. Never before has there been the real possibility of putting together a volume such as this one, for there is now greater interest in the Munda languages than ever before, and good descriptions of almost all of the languages in the family can now be offered, as well as broader studies on such topics as the typology or historical phonology of the Munda language family, and how Munda fits in the greater South Asian linguistic area.
The Munda language family is old in eastern and central India - older than the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages now found in their territory. The ancestor language of Proto-Munda and the cognate Mon-Khmer (Khmer-Nicobar) languages, viz. Proto-Austroasiatic, is at least as ancient as Proto-Indo-European, and is as important culturally and archaeologically for Southeast Asia, South China and eastern India, as Proto-Indo-European is for its part of the world.
The Munda Languages consists of 21 chapters, and Introductory Chapter and a Preface. The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents synchronic descriptions of the eleven main Munda languages. Part II offers a range of sociolinguistic and literary/philological studies of the Munda languages, while Part IIIdiscusses an array of typological, a real, and comparative-historical topics in current Munda linguistics, presenting an assessment of past successes (and failures) in these domains, the status of current work, and suggested paths for future research.

This is the most comprehensive survey ever published of auxiliary verb constructions (as in, for example, 'he could have been going to drink it' and 'she does eat cheese'). Drawing on a database of over 800 languages Dr Anderson examines their morphosyntactic forms and semantic roles, and investigates and explains the historical changes leading to the cross-linguistic diversity of inflectional patterns. He presents his results within a new typological framework.
The book's impressive range includes data on variation within and across languages and language families. In addition to examining languages in Africa, Europe, and Asia the author presents analyses of languages in Australasia and the Pacific and in North, South, and Meso-America. In doing so he reveals much that is new about the language families of the world and makes an important contribution to the understanding of their nature and evolution. His book will interest scholars and researchers in language typology, historical and comparative linguistics, syntax, and morphology.