This study compares the morpho-syntactic properties of the reciprocal and associative markers in Shona, against a background of the reciprocal and associative markers in Bantu. The study goes beyond previous studies both in Shona (e.g., Fortune 1982), and in Bantu (e.g., Kimenyi 1980) by making a comparison of the reciprocal and associative. The goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the reciprocal and the associative and to language typology. The study concludes that the reciprocal and associative markers are:
(i) in complementary distribution; (ii) closely related semantically; (iii) have the same grammatical functions; (iv) have different distributional properties.  Full Article