A Grammar of Makwe

Grammar of Makwe presents a detailed description of a hitherto largely undocumented Bantu language spoken in the North of Mozambique. Historically speaking, Makwe is the outcome of a long-standing contact between Makonde as spoken in the interior of Tanzania and Mozambique and Swahili as spoken along the East African coast.

This grammar treats Makwe phonology, the morphology of nouns, verbs and minor word categories, the semantics of verbal conjugations, and different syntactic topics. A rich collection of texts is offered at the end. Throughout the work, the linguistic analyses are abundantly illustrated with natural speech examples. Of special interest are the so-called conjoint and disjoint verb forms and modifiers which present a striking example of an interface between phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics.