present). Moreover, there is a difference between perfective and imperfective aspect, and within each one of these aspects there is a further distinction between simple and perfect aspect. In the non-past only, the perfect aspect also shows a distinction for simultaneous versus non-simultaneous actions. The verb agrees with both the subject and the object in person and number. The order of morphemes is that of tense – subject agreement – (aspect) – stem – (aspect), with a lot of aspectual work being done by changes in the tonal pattern and/or vowels of the subject agreement prefix and/or the verbal stem. Finally, there is a series of suffixes that can be attached to the verb to change its argument structure or add extra meaning. Toweett (1979:129) gives for Kipsigis the following list of verbal suffixes and other phonological changes that target verbal meaning: –tʃi: applicative morpheme (it introduces and applied argument, such as a recipient or a beneficiary) tonal and/or vowel change of the stem: the action is towards the speaker –aan: action and movement towards the speaker –ta: action is ‘off’ the speaker –ak: used for dispositional middles (and possibly other middles and/or some anticausatives) –: there are two events of what the verb denotes which take place simultaneously Reduplication of the stem (with a vowel intervening between the two occurrences of the stem): the action is repeated several times –iis/-sa: antipassive -een: instrumental (it introduces an instrument) -ya: there are two or more agents involved in the event denoted by the verb -kee: reflexive or reciprocal : comitative The above suffixes show different behavior with respect to ATR harmony (some take the ATR value of the vowels of the stem, while others change the ATR value of the vowels of the stem). The above suffixes can co-occur on the same verb, yielding complex meanings. Syntax Word Order The predominant word order in the language is Verb – Subject – Object (VSO), a common word order in Nilotic. An example of a simple VSO sentence in Nandi can be seen in (1). The order in sentences with nominal or adjectival predicates is Predicate – Subject, as can be seen in (2) and (3). For locative predicates, a special locative copula is used, in which case the order is Verb-Subject-Locative predicate. In the presence of an indirect object, the order is Verb – Subject – Indirect Object – Direct Object. VP