Derek Nurse is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Emeritus Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His books include, with T. J. Hinnebusch, Swahili and Sabaki: A Linguistic History (University of California Press 1993) and, with Bernd Heine, African Languages (CUP 2000). Future work will extend the current book to the non-Bantu Niger-Congo languages.

• 1: Introduction


• 2: Verb Structure and Categories in Bantu


• 3: Tense


• 4: Aspect


• 5: Other Categories


• 6: What Can be Assumed for Proto-Bantu?


• 7: Processes of Change


• Appendices


• Acknowledgements

Derek Nurse looks at variations in the form and function of tense and aspect in Bantu, a branch of Niger-Congo, the world's largest language phylum. His account is based on data from more than 200 Bantu languages and varieties, a representative sample of which is freely available on the publisher's website.