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.

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.

This volume comprises the first comprehensive grammar of a language from the Aslian subgroup, within the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic family. Spoken by approximately 4,000 people in the lowland forests of the Malay Peninsula, Semelai has many distinctive features of interest to linguistic typologists, phonologists, morphologists and syntacticians. The volume provides a unique reference resource for South-East Asian language specialists, as well as general linguists.