The Structure of Noun Phrase in Safaliba

Abstract

This paper discusses the structure of Noun Phrase (NP) in Safaliba, a Gur language spoken in northern Ghana. The paper examines structurally, the Safaliba noun phrase which is made up of the obligatory head noun and the optionally occurring elements - pre-modifiers and post-modifiers. The adjective and the determiners are analysed as the modifiers of the noun phrase in Safaliba. The Safaliba noun phrase takes several post modifiers which are strictly ordered since each modifier has a prescribed syntactic position. The paper also supports the view of the Minimalist Program (MP) developed by Chomsky (1995). The data used in this paper are from both verbal and written sources. Based on the data available, the paper hypothesizes the occurrence of a definite article ‘a’ in pre position and adjectives in post position in Safaliba NP.

Keywords: Safaliba, Gur, Dagbani, Buli, Noun phrase, Definite article