Chapter 5: The noun phrase in Shilluk

Remijsen, Bert; Ayoker, Otto Gwado

Chapter 5: The noun phrase in Shilluk

dc.contributor.author	Remijsen, Bert
dc.contributor.author	Ayoker, Otto Gwado
dc.date.accessioned	2021-07-05T23:24:15Z
dc.date.available	2021-07-05T23:24:15Z
dc.date.issued	2021-07-05
dc.description.abstract	This chapter presents a descriptive analysis of the noun phrase in Shilluk, surveying the variety of modifiers that combine with a nominal head. For the sake of accountability, 270 sound clips are embedded, many of them drawn from spontaneous speech. The set of noun-phrase modifiers includes possessors, adjectives, verbs, non-possessor nouns, quantifiers (including numerals), determiners, and a diminuitive. Of all of these modifiers, the diminuitive is the only one that preceeds the head. This fits with the interpretation that the diminuitive represents an instance of grammaticalization, which developed out of a possessive noun phrase construction. Of particular interest in relation to the numeral system is the fact that, for numbers below 10, the cardinal is morphologically derived on the basis of the ordinal, rather than the way around. Also, in noun phrases modified by a verbal predicate, we find past tense marking on the modification marker. Noun phrases are conjoined in an asymmetric manner, with the non-initial noun phrase representing a prepositional phrase. We also describe vocatives and associative plurals, both of which involve morphological marking at the right edge of the noun phrase. As such, they stand out in the context of Shilluk morphology, which is primarily head-marking in nature.
dc.format.extent	91
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24781
dc.language.iso	en
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/	*
dc.title	Chapter 5: The noun phrase in Shilluk
dc.type	Book Chapter
dc.type.dcmi	Text