This is the first comprehensive grammar of Balantak, an Austronesian language spoken in Eastern Sulawesi, based on years of interaction with the language. Balantak is a conservative Celebic language which has several interesting features, including rich morphophonemics (the 2nd person possessive suffix-Vm, for instance, has 20 allomorphs), a three-way voice system (agent, patient, and locative voice), a tripartite verbal opposition between realis, irrealis, and gerunds, an intriguing article, and a very rich demonstrative system with seven roots and some 250 derived forms.

The description takes a structural and theory-neutral approach towards the language, letting the patterns of Balantak inform the analysis and description. Questions of language typology only play a minor role, although the study tries to be typologically informed and relevant. Six interlinearized texts, supplemented with some frequency patterns, complete the description.