The Structure of a Noun Phrase in Shimwela
Abstract
It is generally agreed that Bantu languages display a high degree of uniformity in terms of the types of elements which constitute a noun phrase, with such elements as demonstratives, distributives, possessives, intensifiers, interrogatives, numerals, quantifiers, adjectives, relative constructions and associative constructions being
robust across the Bantu zone. However, the syntactic behaviour displayed by these noun dependents in different Bantu languages is not the same as there are significant variations in terms of their order, flexibility, and co-occurrence and recurrence restrictions. This paper analyses the syntactic behaviour of noun dependents in Shimwela (P.22), a Bantu language of southern Tanzania, by looking into their order of occurrence, their co-occurrence and recurrence restrictions as well as their saturation point.
Key words: noun phrase, noun dependent, Bantu languages, Shimwela
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