This study examines contracted forms of the demonstrative in the Kimakunduchi dialect of Swahili. Unlike uncontracted demonstratives, the contracted demonstrative always refers to a topic, which can be expressed by preverbal noun phrases. After describing this feature, the study proposes that the Kimakunduchi contracted demonstrative is at an early stage of the development of a pronominal suffix, and provides insights into the hypothesis related to the emergence of post-stem object markers widely observed in Bantu languages.