Tupi-Guarani is a major South American language family which has been the object of sustained attention from the very beginnings of the European presence on the continent. Today it can be considered a relatively well known family of languages, in terms of description of individual languages as well as in terms of comparative studies.

A number of grammatical topics show interesting characteristics in the languages of the family, and it is worth divulgating both the data and the typological issues raised by these data. The book, whose contents results form an international meeting held in French Guyana in January 2000, addresses one of these topics: the basis for a distinction between nouns and verbs. The issue is pervasive in the grammar of many of the languages, because it connects with questions like types of predication (possessive, existential), case-marking, active-stative type of language, omnipredicativity, configurationality, and others.

Contributions, which focus whether on a single language or on large amounts of different language data, aim to freshen our perception of formerly known data as well as to bring new data into current discussion.

Languages studied include Tupinamba, Guarani, Chiriguano, Kamayura, Tapirape, Mbya, Emerillon, and Karitiana, a Tupi but non Tupi-Guarani language.

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