Word order in Matengo (N13): Topicality and informational roles

In many Bantu languages, not only the grammatical agreement of verbs, but also SVO word order, has a role in establishing grammatical relations. In Matengo, however, the main function of word order is to code information structure, rather than grammatical relations. This paper discusses the possible positioning of each element within sentences in Matengo, and shows that word order is largely determined by information structure, especially topicality.