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This paper offers an overview of the verb system and person marking in a hitherto poorly described Sino-Tibetan language. We posit the existence of six verb classes based upon alternations of the final stem vowel, both for transitive and intransitive verbs. Person marking is described in comparison with that of closely related Rgyalrongic languages and is found to be of interest for the reconstruction of the protosystem. The data analysed show that Stau is also interesting from a typological point of view as it illustrates a hitherto undescribed subtype of hierarchical agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]