Inflexion is effected by means of additions to the unchanged base. There is no grammatical distinction of gender. Nouns can be divided into two classes, viz., those that denote animate beings and those that denote inanimate objects respectively. There are three numbers—the singular, the dual and the plural. There are no real cases, at least in the most typical Munda. languages. The direct and the indirect object are indicated by means of additions to the verb. Relations in time and space are indicated by means of suffixes. The genitive, which can be considered as an adjective preceding the governing word, is often derived from such forms denoting locality. Compare Santali hdr-rd, in a man; hdr-rdn, of a man. Higher numbers are counted in twenties. The pronouns have double sets of the dual and the plural of the pronoun of the first person, one including and the other excluding the person addressed. There are also short forms, used as suffixes and infixes, which denote a direct object, an indirect object, or a genitive. The pronoun "that" in Santali has different forms to denote a living being, an inanimate object, something seen, something heard, and so on. There is no relative pronoun, the want being supplied by the use of indefinite forms of the verbal bases, which can in this connection be called relative participles.
Every independent word can perform the function of a verb, and every verbal form can, in its turn, be used as a noun or an adjective. The bases of the different tenses can therefore be described as indifferent words which can be used as a noun, as an adjective, and as a verb, but which are in reality none of them.
Each denotes simply the root meaning as modified by time. Thus in Santali the base dal-ket', struck, which is formed from the base dal, by adding the suffix ket' of the active past, can be used as a noun (compare dal-ket'-ko, strikers, those that struck), as an adjective (compare dal-ket'-hdr, struck man, the man that struck), and as a verb. In the last case it is necessary to add an a if the action really takes place ; thus, dal-ket'-a, somebody struck.
The pronominal affixes to indicate direct and indirect object are inserted before the assertive particle a. Thus the affix denot ing a direct object of.the third person singular is e, and by insert ing it in dal-ket'-a we arrive at a form dal-ked-e-a, somebody struck him. Similar affixes can be added to denote that the object or subject of an action belongs to somebody. Thus Santali hdpdn-iii-e dal-ket'-tako-tin -a, son-my-he struck-theirs-mine, my son who belongs to me struck theirs.
A single verbal form often corresponds to a whole sentence or a series of sentences in other languages. The most developed Mundy languages possess different bases for the active, the middle and the passive ; there are different causal, intensive and reciprocal bases, which are conjugated throughout, and the person of the subject is often indicated in the verb, which is, however, quite regular throughout.
See Linguistic Survey of India, vol. iv., p. i. and vol. i., 1927.