This book has two important aims. The first is to argue that grammaticalization theory has advanced to the point where it can be used with the comparative method to reconstruct the grammar of Proto-Languages. The second is to give a detailed case-study of this methodology by examining the typologically interesting Cariban language family of South America--a language group that has, according to most linguists, an impossible (that is, far too technical) syntactic structure. Spike Gildea's findings answer long-standing questions about the historical reconstruction of grammar and will interest linguists concerned with South American languages and with grammaticalization, as well as those working in the descriptive or functional traditions.