2.0 Introduction
2.1.11 Noun phrase and The X-bar syntax
71
illustrate better than mere assertion the kinds of factors that can be involved in the constant interplay in many African languages in its linguistic and literary features.
For an account meaning of words having dissimilar parts, Putnam (1975) proposed that it has three parts, but with the notion that, it is part structural and part experimental.
Mbiti (1999) observes that nearly all African names have a meaning which corresponds to family names (ties), seasons, days of the week, time of the day, natural phenomena etc. and so on. Shillington (1995) states that even names of languages have meanings and are symbolic, the name ‗Swahili‘ means literary
‗people of the coast‘, ‗Bantu‘ simply means ‗person‘ etc. and so on. The Dictionary of First Names (2004) gives a comprehensive list in easy to use A–Z order of over 3,000 names of boys and girls. The book provides a comprehensive list of names from around the world, with their derivations and meanings to help one make a right choice. ―The choice of a right name for a new baby is an important one a child‘s life can be made miserable by an inappropriate or misapplied name‖ Geddes (2004). By applying the literature reviewed above, this study established that KPP names, symbols, slogans and colours have both denotative and connotative-associative meanings.
72
expressions and the complements of prepositions. NPs can be embedded inside each other; for instance, the NP some of his constituents contains the shorter NP his constituents. In some more modern theories of grammar, noun phrases with determiners are analyzed as having the determiner as the head of the phrase. Some examples of NPs are underlined in the sentences below. The head noun appears in bold.
An eleveth-hour meeting is annoying to many executives.
Nearly every neighbourhood has at least one palm wine tree.
Kenyan high energy prices may be a result of the new fuel tax.
Noun phrases can be identified by the possibility of pronoun substitution, as is illustrated in the examples below.
a) An eleventh-hour meeting is annoying to many executives.
It is annoying to them
b) Nearly every neighbourhood has at least one palm wine tree.
It has it
c) Kenyan high energy prices may be a result of the new fuel tax.
It may be it
A string of words that can be replaced by a single pronoun without rendering the sentence grammatically unacceptable is a noun phrase. As to whether the string must contain at least two words, see the following section. Traditionally, a phrase is understood to contain two or more words. Traditionally, progression follows word>phrase>clause pattern.
73
Under X-bar theory many single words are judged to be phrases based on a desire for theory-internal consistency. A phrase is deemed to be a word or a combination of words that appears in a set syntactic position, for instance in subject position or object position. In the sentences given below, nouns and pronouns-which are NPs-are written in bold:
She saw it.
Sin is evil.
He was glued on his new television set.
The words in bold are called phrases since they appear in the syntactic positions where multiple-word phrases (i.e. traditional phrases) can appear. This practice takes the constellation to be primitive rather than the words themselves. He functions as a pronoun, but within the sentence it also functions as a NP. A typical noun phrase consists of a noun (the head of the phrase) together with zero or more dependents of various types. (These dependents, since they modify a noun, are called adnominal.) The chief types of these dependents are:
determiners, such as an, that, a few , any, Ann's
attributive adjectives, such as small, cute, clever
adjective phrases and participial phrases, such as extremely large, hard as nails, made of black, sitting on the step
noun adjuncts, such as university in the noun phrase the university professor
nouns in certain oblique cases, in languages which have them, such as German des Mannes ("of the man"; genitive form)
prepositional phrases, such in the dining room, of her cousin
74
adnominal adverbs and adverbials, such as (over) there in the noun phrase all (over) the place
relative clauses, such as who ran mad,
other clauses serving as complements to the noun, such as that paris is great, in the noun phrase the myth that Paris is great
Infinitive phrases, such as to run smart and to win in the noun phrases a desire to run smart and the game to win.
In the original X-bar theory, the two respective types of entity are called noun phrase (NP) and N-bar (N, N′). Thus in the sentence there is the new car, both car and new car are N-bars, while the new car is a noun phrase. In the sentence I admire new cars, both cars and new cars are N-bars, but new cars also functions as a noun phrase (in this case without an explicit determiner). For some modern syntactic theorists, determiner the (which may be null) is head of the phrase called determiner phrases (DP). Thus, what we called "noun phrases" is no longer considered to be headed by a noun. (In some accounts that take this approach, the constituent lacking the determiner – that called N-bar above – may be referred to as a noun phrase.)
75
The head noun picture has the four dependents the, old, of Fred, and that I found in the drawer. The tree shows how the lighter dependents appear as pre-dependents (preceding their head) and the heavier ones as post-dependents (following their head).
The second tree assumes the DP hypothesis, namely that determiners rather than nouns serve as phrase heads.
The determiner the is now depicted as the head of the entire phrase, thus making the phrase a determiner phrase. Note that there is still a noun phrase present (old picture of Fred that I found in the drawer) but this phrase is below the determiner.
This study employs analysis of the tenets of the X-bar theory and the literatures reviewed above in the analysis of syntactic structure of KPP names.
The Gap
All the reviewed literatures were discussed pointing out their relevance and importance to this study. We deed point out their limits which in themselves constitute the gaps this research fills. Significantly, no linguistic study has been done
76
on KPP names, symbols, colours and slogans with a view of unearthing their morphonology (KPP abbreviations), structure-syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics (code mixing), political discourse, etc.