Grammar of Meithei

The author presents, in an easily accessible generative framework, a reference on the Tibeto-Burman language Meithei. The grammar is divided into nine chapters which deal with phonology and morphology (phonemic contrasts, tone, the interaction of phonology and morphology, a word syntax for the description of the agglutinative morphology of Meithei) and syntax (the structure of root sentences, nominalization and other dependent clauses, case marking, the marking of grammatical relations). A functional perspective dealing with the signalling of evidentiality and indirect speech acts is given in the final chapter. The interaction of phonology and morphology is described in terms of the theory of Lexical Morphology and Phonology. It is shown, that while this theory is effective in describing the morphophonological facts of Meithei, it makes wrong predictions about word level semantics. The author argues that an appropriate grammar Meithei should allow for autonomous semantic and morphophonological representations. The book is rich in data: both elicited and naturally occurring speech acts are used in the analysis. Included are texts with interlinear translation, a Meithei word glossary, a subject index, a comprehensive bibliography of Meithei Linguistics, maps and pictures of consultants. Written primarily for the linguist, this grammar should also be of use to teachers and students of Meithei.