Rajbanshi grammar and interlinearized text. By Tikaram Poudel. (LINCOM studies in           Indo-European linguistics 34.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2006. Pp. 132. ISBN 9783895863233. $86.66.

Reviewed by Elly van Gelderen, Arizona State University

Rajbanshi is spoken in the borderlands of India and Nepal. At last count, there were approximately three-million speakers of Rajbanshi in India, one-hundred-thousand in Nepal, and thirteen-thousand in Bangladesh (Ethnologue.com). In this volume, Tikaram Poudel limits his study to the variety of Rajbanshi spoken in Nepal.

In Ch. 1, P introduces the speakers of Rajbanshi. Ch. 2 overviews Rajbanshi’s phonology, Ch. 3 explores its morphology, and Ch. 4 examines its syntax. Ch. 5 provides a sample text, which includes a morpheme gloss and a free translation.

Rajbanshi nouns bear number, gender, and case and the verbs are inflected for person and number. Unlike many languages in the area that are split ergative, Rajbanshi is a nominative/accusative language. Both auxiliaries and ‘vector’ verbs (which are more lexical than auxiliaries and can be combined with auxiliaries and negated independently) are numerous.

The word order in Rajbanshi is verb-final and wh-words remain in-situ. P discusses the structure of the noun phrase, agreement markers, and passives. Declarative sentences may be equative, intransitive, transitive, bitransitive, or complex transitive. Imperatives are verb-final constructions in which the verb is inflected for the status of the listener.

This book provides an introduction to the grammar of Rajbanshi. Although he provides good examples and glosses, P leaves the reader wanting more data and description at times. It is hoped that the publication of this grammar will inspire P to do a more in-depth study.