The Language of the Modhupur Mandi (Garo), vol. 1: Grammar (review)

This is the first book-length study of a Garo variety of Bangladesh. It supplements the author’s previous shorter work on the grammar of the Garo variety spoken across the border in northeastern India. The volume consists of two introductory chapters (1–15), thirteen chapters (17–346), a collection of short texts in Appendix A (347–65), a second Appendix (B) consisting of study questions for language learners (367–84), a glossary (Appendix C) of linguistic terminology used in the text (385–94), references (395–96), and two indices, one of affixes (397–99) and the other of topics (400–406).

Burling’s study of Mandi, as the speakers of the variety of Garo spoken in Modhupur, Bangladesh, prefer to be known, seeks to serve the purposes of three very different types of audiences: specifically, Garo speakers themselves; anyone interested in learning a Garo variety as a spoken language; and professional linguists, in particular Tibeto-Burmanists and typologists. On the surface, this would seem an impossible task, but once the reader becomes familiar with the system and style used, it actually accomplishes this task fairly well. Chapters are divided into three sections, labeled A, B, and C, for Garo-learners, Garo-speakers, and linguists, respectively, each of which provides more or less detail of description, depending on which part of the target audience the reader identifies with.

Ch. 1 (7–15) presents an overview of the Garo people and language. The following three chapters focus on the sound system of the language, including chapters on the segmental phonology (17–47), the complex system of juncture and prosody (49–69), and morphophonemics and dialect variation (71–89).

Ch. 5 (91–104) consists of an overview of the grammar of the language, introducing the topics examined in detail in the following chapters. Ch. 6 (105–38) and 7 (139–63) address the fascinating verbal system of this previously poorly described variety of Garo. Ch. 8 (164–211) and 9 (213–42) discuss the nominal system of Mandi (Garo). This includes a lengthy presentation of the developed system of nominal case forms found in the language (181–202), as well as such unusual derivational suffixes as -sim-ang indicating ‘coarse body hair’ (176) found in such words as mik-sim-ang ‘eyebrows’, pak-sim-ang ‘underarm hair’, and ri-sim-ang ‘male pubic hair’. Ch. 10 (243–59) discusses the numeral system of Mandi (Garo), while Ch. 11 (261–92) addresses such minor word classes as adverbs and indefinite pronouns. Of particular interest in the chapter on numerals is B’s discussion of numeral classifiers found in the language (247–59).

The final three chapters present an overview of a range of syntactic phenomena in the Mandi (Garo) language. Ch. 12 (293–304) discusses processes of nominalization of clauses and so forth, while Ch. 13 (305–31) deals with a variety of subordination strategies used in the language. Ch. 14 (333), somewhat confusingly titled ‘Restructuring’, addresses a diverse range of further syntactic phenomena such as the Mandi (Garo) reflex of the areally common relative-correlative constructions, as well as processes of dislocation and so forth.

Overall the book is fairly approachable, and once the reader learns how to use it, information can be found relatively easily. It will be welcome in the collection of both typologists and specialists in Tibeto-Burman languages specifically or South Asian languages more generally.