A corpus study of Swahili's dual complementizer system

We examine the distribution of the complementizers kwamba and kuwa in a corpusof Tanzanian Swahili. Our findings suggest that the complementizers are not infree variation, as is standardly assumed. Instead, their use is sensitive to a varietyof factors known to affect complementizer choice crosslinguistically, specificallylexical class of the embedding predicate, person features of the main clause subject,and mood of the embedded clause. Given the distinct factors shown to predict thetwo complementizers, we suggest that kwamba/kuwa differ in terms of “relativebelief,” where kuwa is used to express a more general belief, while kwamba is usedto express a privately held belief.