The Indo-Aryan language family is a branch of the Indo-European phylum, and includes Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Gujarati. First published in 1875, this three-volume comparative grammar of the family was written by the British civil servant John Beames (1837–1902). From 1866 he spent twelve years in India, during which he gathered data for what he intended to be the first comprehensive and accurate Indo-Aryan grammar. Volume 1 focuses on phonetics and phonology, Volume 2, on nouns and pronouns, and Volume 3, on verbs. Beames' findings remain central to the work of general linguists, grammarians and language typologists.
Contents
Volume 1: Preface; Book I. On Sounds: 1. Introduction; 2. On vowel changes; 3. Changes of single consonants; 4. Changes of compound consonants. Volume 2: Preface; Book II. The Noun and the Pronoun: 1. Formation of the stem; 2. Gender; 3. Declension; 4. The pronoun. Volume 3: Book III. The Verb: 1. Structure of verbal stems; 2. The simple tenses; 3. The participal tenses; 4. The compound tenses; 5. Other verbal forms; 6. The particle; General index to the three volumes.
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