Open AccessLinear order constraints on split NPs in Chichewa
Author(s) -
Sam Mchombo
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.43.2006.289
Subject(s) - bantu languages , rubric , discontinuity (linguistics) , position (finance) , noun , order (exchange) , mathematics , linguistics , noun phrase , word order , unit (ring theory) , genealogy , natural language processing , computer science , combinatorics , history , arithmetic , mathematics education , philosophy , mathematical analysis , finance , economics
This paper focuses on restrictions on the ordering of internal constituents of noun phrases in Chichewa, especially when those constituents are discontinuous. The motivation for discontinuity of the NP constituents will be given, together with discussion of constructions that can be subsumed under this rubric but that do not really involve discontinuity in the canonical sense. These are constructions where a topic NP in a left periphery position is either linked anaphorically with a modifier "remnant" or semantically with its hyponym in post-verbal position. According to Guthrie's classification of Bantu languages, Chichewa is placed in zone N unit N31. It is regarded as a dialect of Nyanja, classified as belonging to unit N30 (Guthrie 1967-71).