Panare, also known as E'napa Woromaipu, is a seriously endangered Cariban language spoken by about 3,500 people in Central Venezuela. A Typological Grammar of Panare by Thomas E. Payne and Doris L. Payne, is a full length linguistic grammar written from a modern functional and typological perspective. The many remarkable characteristics highlighted in the grammar include a 'split-inverse' person marking system, transitivity-sensitive aspect and person-marking verb morphology, object incorporation, relatively nonconfigurational NP structure, both verb-initial and object-initial...

Certain grammatical elements help hearers know how propositions are conceptually related: Does a given proposition advance the foregrounded event line, or not? Initiate versus continue an event chain? Indicate that one proposition belongs to a different "mental space" from the previous one? Provide background information? Studies in this volume show that African languages sometimes support, but often refute the idea that perfective aspect or past tense marks the narrative event line. Rather, languages may employ clause level constructions, conjunctions or connectives, tonal melodies on verbs...