diff --git a/swig/annotatedsentence.i b/swig/annotatedsentence.i
index e04c0a05f02f627f621fb848496a911c70b271e8..07232be2e89d604040e814b8226e37396129b990 100644
--- a/swig/annotatedsentence.i
+++ b/swig/annotatedsentence.i
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ namespace Corpus2 {
     typedef std::map<std::string, AnnotationChannel> chan_map_t;
 
     /* --------------------------------------------------------------------- */
-    AnnotatedSentence();
+    AnnotatedSentence(const std::string &id = "");
     ~AnnotatedSentence();
     
     /* --------------------------------------------------------------------- */
diff --git a/swig/sentence.i b/swig/sentence.i
index edf2c47349bc509bbfa53ddf09326413cf2bb98a..955ad7dd428fd6f449b30faba28984ea6b92daa6 100644
--- a/swig/sentence.i
+++ b/swig/sentence.i
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ namespace Corpus2 {
     
     /* --------------------------------------------------------------------- */
 
-    Sentence();
+    Sentence(const std::string &id = "");
     ~Sentence();
 
     /* --------------------------------------------------------------------- */