The Structure of the Bantu Noun Phrase

The Structure of the Bantu Noun Phrase
Type	Article
Author(s)	Josephat M. Rugemalira
Journal	SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics
Publication date	2007
Pages	135-148
Volume	Vol.15
Country	Tanzania University of Dar es Salaam jmruge@uccmail.co.tz
Annotator	Samuel Namugala
Corpus Link	The Structure of the Bantu Noun Phrase
Subject(s)	Linguistics, Syntax

By: Samuel Namugala

General Information

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Keywords

• Bantu languages
• Noun phrase
• Elements
• Modifiers
• Interrogative words

Summary

This article discusses the syntax of the noun phrase in several Bantu languages by examining the syntax of the noun and its dependent elements through addressing the following questions:

• What elements can modify the Bantu noun and in what order?

• Which elements can co-occur and/or recur in the modification structure and what criteria are relevant in characterizing the dependents of the noun?

• Is there a saturation point in the modification structure?

It points out that it’s possible to stack two determiners; a possessive and a demonstrative (consider example 2.b in the table). It’s also possible to stack two or more adjectives in many languages (see 3.a and 3.b). The author claims that nominal dependents in Bantu are post-head with a frequent exception and that in several languages possessives are fixed immediately after the head noun. Other elements follow the possessives with considerably a free ordering (see 16.b). Conclusively, with the exception of demonstratives, possessives and relative clauses, all other elements in the noun phrase are considerably mobile.

The suggested order of elements is; pre-determiner, noun, determiner, modifier, post-modifier. However, there’s considerable variation in the ordering of items in the modifier position (no such freedom in other positions).

Glossed texts in the article

The following are glossed examples as extracted from the article. The link to their glosses by the annotator is [1]

LANGUAGE	TEXT	TEXT IN ENGLISH
Swahili	2.b)kitabu changu kile book mine that	(that book of mine)
Swahili	3.b)kitabu kipya kizuri book new nice	(a nice new book)
Swahili	4.)vitabu vingi sana books many very	(books are very many)
Swahili	6.) kila mtu each person	(each person)
Swahili	13.a)mtu wangu yule person mine that	(that person of mine)
Sukuma	22.b)abhanu bhatano bhose abho abhane people five all those my	(all those five people of mine)
Safwa	20.a)bhala abhantu bhani bhasanu those people my five	(those five people of mine)
Safwa	20.a)abhantu bhani bhasanu bhala people my five those	(those five people of mine)
Mashami	3.a)kitabu kasha kidodori book red good	(a good red book)
Ha	16.b)abhantu bhanje bhaya bhataanu bhasole people my those five good	(those five good people of mine)

Related Articles

Mark Van de Velde (University of Leuven/FWO). The order of noun and demonstrative in Bantu. Available online at http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr/pers/vandevelde/files/pdfs/The-order-of-noun-and-demonstrative-in-Bantu.pdf Accessed on 2012-05-22.