This paper provides an overview of evidential strategies in Nyamwezi. Nyamwezi, like many other African languages, does not have specific grammatical categories which indicate evidentiality, but evidentiality can be expressed (i) through tense and aspect constructions and (ii) through lexical verbs (particularly verbs of saying and verbs of perception) and epistemic expressions. These evidential strategies differ from each other based on the information source, that is, on the source of knowledge expressed in a proposition, and on the speaker’s attitude and view concerning that knowledge.

In this paper, we discuss shifts in the formal relation, i.e. "correspondence" (Haspelmath 1993;Nichols et al. 2004), between members of noncausal/causal verb pairs in eight East Bantu languages. These shifts are the effect of diachronic changes to the morphophonological structure of the verbs involved, conditioned by reflexes of a reconstructed Proto-Bantu causative suffix *-i. In the history of many Bantu languages, the high vowels i and u conditioned a series of sound changes on the preceding consonant. The suffixing of the causative suffix *-i to a verb root is one context in which these sound changes occurred. We investigate noncausal/causal pairs in eight East Bantu languages in which the causal verb is historically derived by a reflex of the suffix *-i. We argue that many of these noncausal/causal pairs changed from a causative to another correspondence. Our analysis has implications for the study of the formal alternations of noncausal/causal verb pairs across all Bantu languages and beyond.

In this introduction to the special issue on the noncausal/causal alternation in African languages, we lay the foundation for the contributions that follow. We provide an overview of the languages that are discussed in the contributions. We present a definition of the noncausal/causal alternation, and a summary of the typological literature on this alternation. We outline two dominant typologies of socalled "correspondence types" and discuss the methodology for investigating the noncausal/causal alternation. The introduction closes with summaries of the eight contributions.

The framework proposed in the works of Robert Botne and Tiffany Kershner has been widely used to classify verbs in Bantu languages. In this framework, verbs encode events which consist of maximally three phases: onset (represents the coming-to-be phase), nucleus (represents the state change itself; can also be represented as a coming-to-be phase if the verb lacks an onset) and coda (represents the result-state phase). Hence, verbs are defined depending on which phases they encode and whether particular phases are punctual or durative. The phasal structures of verbs can be diagnosed using various tests. The application of these diagnostics to Nyamwezi (a Tanzanian Bantu language, [nym]) produces three significant variations. First, Botne and Kershner’s conception of statives as events with no phasal structure is not tenable in Nyamwezi. The tests show that in Nyamwezi, statives have structure. Second, some classes described in Botne and Kershner do not occur in Nyamwezi. Third, in Botne and Kershner’s works, classes are described depending on whether particular phases are punctual or durative. In addition to this characteristic, the classes in Nyamwezi can also be described depending on whether particular phases are dynamic or static, and whether the result state is permanent or reversible.

This paper explores the middle voice in Kagulu, a Bantu language of Tanzania. Although not traditionally recognized in Bantu languages, recent research has asserted that middle voice is attested in some Bantu languages. We propose that of eight affixes that might be considered middle markers, Kagulu has two affixes that are part of the middle voice system, each one coding two different detransitivizing voices. We argue that, from a diachronic viewpoint, the underdeveloped voice syncretism of Kagulu’s middle markers is the result of competing morphology and minimal functional innovations towards voice syncretism in the derivational system of Kagulu.