Some Aspects of the Architecture of the Possesive Noun Phrase in Bantu

Abstract

Possessive nouns phrases are minimally made up of at lest two Noun phrases (NPs) that are possessively ralated to each other. In this article we argue that the syntactic order in which these noun phrases appear is not as rondom as it may look on the surface. Semantic constrains in a large measure, determine the syntactic order of the NPs constituting possessive phrases. Some such constrains include the Personal Animacy (PAH,) generic and par-whole relationships of nouns among others that will be explored in the article. It shall also be argued that the said semantics are not syntactic rules as such but are strong cross-lingustics tendencies to which the linear ordering of the possessive phrase more often than not conforms and especially within the performance as opposed to the competence domain of language ability