The Definite Article in Swahili

Rodrick Gregory Ndomba

Abstract


This paper contributes to the debate on whether or not Swahili nominals have overt determiners to qualify for DP analysis. It has been concluded in some circles that Swahili nominals are not amenable to DP analysis for lacking determiners – definite articles. It is assumed in this paper that what appear to be articleless DPs in Swahili are
underlyingly headed by the D node which always remains empty except in cases when D is occupied by the prenominal demonstratives base generated in a lower position inside the DP structure. The strongest evidence in Swahili comes from asymmetries between prenominal and postnominal demonstratives whereby the prenominal demonstratives are said to be anaphoric and postnominal demonstratives deictic. Assuming that the prenominal demonstrative is base generated below D, the conclusion must be that the demonstrative appears in the
prenominal position following the raising.


Key words: Swahili nominals, DP analysis, definite article, articleless DPs in Swahili, pronominal demonstratives, postnominal demonstratives, DP structure


Full Text:

PDF

References


Abney, S. (1987). The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. MIT Press.

Baker, M. C. (1988). Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical

Function Changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Brugè, L. (2002). The Positions of Demonstratives in the Extended

Nominal Projection. In G. Cinque (ed.). Functional Structure

in DP and IP: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 15–53.

Carstens, V. (1991). The Morphology and Syntax of Determiner

Phrases in Kiswahili. Unpublished PhD. Dissertation, Los Angels, University of California.

Carstens, V. (1993). On Nominal Morphology and DP Structure. In S.

A. Mchombo (ed.), Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publishers: 151–180

Carstens, V. (2008). The Structure of DPs: DP in Bantu and Romance. In C. De Cat & D. Catherine (eds.). The Bantu-Romance Connection: A Comparative Investigation of Verbal Agreement, DPs, and Information Structure, 131. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V: 131–166.

Chen, P. (2004). Identifiability and Definiteness in Chinese.

Linguistics, 42(6): 1129–1184.

Chomsky, N. (1986a). Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1986b). Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin,

and Use. New York: Praeger.

Cummins, G. M. (1998). Definiteness in Czech. Studies in Language,22(3): 567–596. de Velde, V. (2005). The order of Noun and Demonstrative in Bantu. In K. Bostoen & J. Maniaky (eds.). Studies in African Comparative Linguistics with Special Focus on Bantu and Mande. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa: 425–441.

Diessel, H. (1999). Demonstratives: Form, Function and

Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Dryer, M. S. (2007). Noun Phrase Structure. In T. Shopen (ed.).

Complex Constructions, Language Typology and Syntactic

Description (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 151–205.

Giusti, G. (1992). Heads and Modifiers among Determiners: Evidence

from Romanian and German. University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics, 2.(1.4): 1–19.

Giusti, G. (1995). Categorial Status of Determiners. (L. Haegeman,

Ed.)The New Comparative Syntax. London & New York: Longman.

Giusti, G. (2002). The Functional Structure of Noun Phrases: A Bare

Phrase Structure Approach. In G. Cinque (ed.). Functional Structure in DP and IP: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 54–90.

Givón, T. (2001). Syntax: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: John

Benjamins.

Greenberg, J. H. (1978). How does a Language Acquire Gender Markers? In J. H. Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of Human Languages, III: Word Structure. Stanford: Stanford University Press: 47–82.

Heine, B. & Kuteva, T. (2002). World Lexicon of Grammaticalization.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heine, B. & Nurse, D. (eds.) (2008). A Linguistic Geography of Africa.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jackendoff, R. (1977). X-bar Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kihore, Y. M., Massamba, D. P. B. & Msanjila, Y. P. (2012). Sarufi na

Maumbo ya Kiswahili Sanifu (Samakisa): Sekondari na Vyuo. Dar es Salaam: Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili, Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam.

Krifka, M. (1995). Swahili. In J. Jacobs, A. von Stechow, W. Sternefeld & T. Vennemann (eds.). Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 1397–1418.

Longobardi, G. (1994). Reference and Proper Names. Linguistic

Inquiry, 25: 609–665.

Lusekelo, A. (2009). The structure of the Nyakyusa noun phrase.

Nordic Journal of African Studies, 18(4): 305–331.

Lusekelo, A. (2013). DP-internal and V-external Agreement Patterns

in Bantu: Re-statement of the Facts on Eastern Bantu Languages. Journal of Linguistics and Language in Education, 7(1): 19–47.

Lyons, C. (1999). Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Ndomba, R. G. (2006). Samatengo Noun Phrase Structure.

Unpublished MA (Linguistics) Dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam.

Ndomba, R. G. (2017). The Structure and Derivation of the Determiner Phrase in Swahili. Unpublished PhD (Linguistics) Thesis, University College Dublin.

Ouhalla, J. (1999). Introducing Transformational Grammar: From

Principles and Parameters to Minimalism. London: Hodder Headline Group.

Portefield, L. & Srivastav, V. (1988). (In)Definiteness in the Absence

of Articles: Evidence from Hidni and Indonesian. In B. Hagit (ed.). In Proceedings of the Seventh West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Stanford: CSLI Publishers: 265–276.

Progovac, L. (1998). Determiner Phrase in a Language without

Determiners (with apologies to Jim Huang 1982). Journal of

Linguistics, 34(1): 165–179.

Roberts, I. & Roussou, A. (2003). Syntactic Change. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Rugemalira, J. M. (2007). The Structure of the Bantu noun Phrase.

SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics, 15.

Rutkowski, P. (2002). Noun/pronoun Asymmetries: Evidence in

Support of the DP Hypothesis in Polish. Jezikoslovlje, 3(1–2): 159–170.

Sacleux, [Père] Charles de. (1909). Grammaire Swahilie. Paris:

Procure des Pères du Saint-Esprit.

Shlonsky, U. (2004). The Form of Semitic Noun Phrases. Lingua, 114(12): 1465–1526. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2003.09.019

Ström, E. B. (2015). The Word Order in Swahili Adnominal

Constructions with Locative Demonstratives, 24(2): 118–145.

Travis, L. D. (1984). Parameters and Effects of Word Order

Variation. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, MIT, Cambridge,

Massachusets.

Trenkic, D. (2004). Definiteness in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian and

Some Implications for the General Structure of the Nominal

Phrase. Lingua, 114: 1401–1427.

Veselovská, L. & Janebová, M. (eds.) (2014). Nominal Structures: All

in Complex DPs. Olomouc: Palacký University.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 [ISSN 0856-9965 (Print)]