Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India

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 3 focuses on verbs. It begins by describing the structure of Sanskrit verbs, showing them to be the origin of the analytical verb constructions found in Indo-Aryan languages. It then compares Indo-Aryan verbs in terms of tense and transitivity, and explores passive constructions, conditionals, and imperatives across the seven most widely spoken languages in the family. Beames' findings remain central to the work of general linguists, grammarians and language typologists.