A Minimalist Syntax of Nominal Constructions in Igálà and Yorùbá (Paperback)

Over the last one and a half decade, standard practice in the minimalist program (MP) assumes all nominal phrases in UG are DPs. This position which has its foundation in the Det-as-Head analysis of Abney (1987) rests on phrase-internal case/phi- feature agreement, which does not appear to hold for all natural languages particularly Niger-Congo languages, e.g. those of the Defoid -Yoruboid- group of Benue-Congo Kwa family spoken in Nigeria. This book employs instruments of the minimalist grammar to analyse various aspects of nominal projections in Igálà and Yorùbá, two of the three languages in the Yoruboid group (the third being Itshẹkiri). While the analyses appear to pose some challenges to the theory, it sheds some light on the way the MP approach can be deployed and tailored to account for nominal projections in these languages without compromising language-specific structural facts or presuming/pretending that the DP-hypothesis works the same way for all languages. This book would be most useful to teachers and students of general and African linguistics in terms of additional data resources and structural information on Niger-Congo Kwa syntax.