The speakers of Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from the northwest Amazonian jungle, traditionally marry someone speaking a different language; therefore, most are fluent in five or six languages. This comprehensive grammar reveals how Tariana combines its own features with those borrowed from neighboring languages because of the rampant multilingualism. The language has many unusual properties, making this grammar a valuable sourcebook for linguists and others interested in natural languages.

Alexandra Aikhenvald is Professor of Linguistics and Associate Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. Her books include Language Contact in Amazonia (2003) and The Amazonian languages (co-edited with R. M. W. Dixon, Cambridge University Press, 1999). She has done extensive fieldwork on numerous Arawak languages from Brazil and has published a collection of texts in Tariana and also a Tariana-Portuguese dictionary.

List of tables, schemes and diagrams; Preface; Acknowledgements; Organisation and cross-referencing; List of abbreviations; Map; 1. The language and its speakers; 2. Phonology; 3. Word classes; 4. Nominal morphology and noun structure; 5. Noun classes and classifiers; 6. Possession; 7. Case marking and grammatical relations; 8. Number; 9. Further nominal categories; 10. Derivation and compounding; 11. Closed word classes; 12. Verb classes and predicate structure; 13. Valency changing and argument rearranging mechanisms; 14. Tense and evidentiality; 15. Aspect, Aktionsart and degree; 16. Mood and modality; 17. Negation; 18. Serial verb constructions and verb compounding; 19. Complex predicates; 20. Participles and nominalisations; 21. Clause types and other syntactic issues; 22. Subordinate clauses and clause linking; 23. Relative clauses; 24. Complement clauses; 25. Discourse organisation; 26. Issues in etymology and semantics; Appendix; Texts; Vocabulary; References; Index.