This thesis discusses four selected topics on Yoruba nominal expressions: the syntax of
possessives, the construal of bare nouns, the marking of specificity and salience, and
plural marking strategies.
Regarding possessives, it is proposed that they have one base structure (a v P
shell). The difference in surface linear order between verbal and nominal genitives is
determined by which of the two arguments move. In nominal genitives, the possessum
moves. In verbal genitives, it is the possessor that moves.
Regarding the interpretation of Yoruba bare nouns, it is shown that they can be
construed in one of three ways: as generics, as indefinites, or as definites. First, generics
may be lexically conditioned (with permanent state predicates) or grammatically
conditioned (with transitory predicates through the use of imperfective maa-n). Second,
wherever a generic construal is illicit, an indefinite construal is licit. Third, definite
construals are discourse-linked.
Regarding specificity, it is shown that Yoruba overtly marks specificity on NPs
with the element kan. Regarding salience, it is shown that definite DPs are
morphologically marked as salient (by virtue of being unique, in an identity relation or
additive) through the use of ndd.
Finally, regarding plural marking, it is shown that Yoruba uses three different
strategies: contextually, semantically, or morphologically determined plurality. It is
proposed that the deployment of the PLURAL feature is determined by feature
percolation or feature matching. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/18199 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Ajíbóyè, Ọládiípọ̀ Jacob |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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