The constituent structure of the swahili noun phrase

Natural languages have different phrase structures. This study sought to investigate the constituent structure of the Swahili noun phrase. The study employed a descriptive approach and involved the formulation of important principles so as to tackle the objectives of the study. The sample for this study consisted of fifty native speakers of Swahili. The data for this study were collected through a questionnaire, a structured interview, documentary review and introspection. The findings indicate that the Swahili noun phrase is made up of the head noun with or without dependents. In some cases, the dependents include distributives, demonstratives, possessives, numerals, adjectives, associatives, quantifiers and relative clauses. The findings further show that some elements are free to change their positions while others are fixed to particular positions. Elements which occur in fixed positions include distributives, which precede the head noun, possessives, which occupy the position immediately after the head noun and relative clauses, which take the final position. Those which are free to move are demonstratives, interrogatives, numerals and quantifiers. The findings also indicate that the number of dependents which co-occur with the head noun ranges between one and seven, but the normal load is four. The number of dependents is, however, determined by the type of grammatical relation such that when a phrase is a subject the upper limit is four but when a phrase is an object the upper limit is six. Moreover, variation in the order of elements leads to meaning alternations, which include focus, specification, pointing, emphasis and reference. Finally, the findings show that the Swahili noun phrase may involve other processes such as infinitivization and locativization.