This paper explores the notion of analyzing cross-linguistically uncommon morphosyntactic structures in terms of their historical development. What may seem extraordinary in the synchronic snapshot of a language can often be clearly accounted for through diachronic considerations. To illustrate this, the current study examines the typologically uncommon phenomenon of multiple exponence, the realization of the same grammatical information in multiple places within an inflected word, in the Kiranti (Tibeto-Burman) languages. Typologically speaking, we do see a strong tendency cross-linguistically towards encoding grammatical information once within an inflected word, and against multiple exponence. Yet the phenomenon of multiple exponence is attested in a number of languages. This paper presents comparative evidence from the Kiranti languages that supports the claim that multiple exponence in synthetic verbs in the modern Kiranti languages comes as a result of the interaction between language(family)-specific typology (multiple agreement in periphrastic verbs) and an uncontroversial language change process (coalescence of periphrastic forms into synthetic forms).

This chapter provides a descriptive overview of the most common types of agreement exhibited in Indigenous Australian languages, with a focus on inflectional morphology and typologically uncommon agreement phenomena. Language data comes from a variety of sources, including descriptive grammars, formal analyses, and learner’s guides. The goal of this chapter is to describe the general picture of morphological agreement in both Pama-Nyungan and non-Pama-Nyungan contexts. The chapter surveys nominal and verbal agreement, discussing both concord and agreement between verbs and core arguments and agreement in possessive constructions. The chapter surveys the types of features which display agreement and some information on affixation and portmanteaux marking.

In many languages, word order plays a role parallel to morphological features, such as case marking and verbal agreement, in that it encodes basic relationships between syntactic elements, e.g., a verb and its core argument(s), or a head noun and its dependent(s). This chapter presents a summary of basic word order and related phenomena in the context of the Indigenous languages of Australia. Australian languages have been noted for their variability with respect to the ordering of words and/or constituents, though most show statistical preference for a single order, most commonly SOV or SVO. The chapter presents a summary of sentence- or utterance-level word and constituent order in both Pama-Nyungan and non-Pama-Nyungan languages. This is followed by an overview of word order phenomena in noun phrases.