The Structure of the DP in Dagbani

Abstract

Guided by Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist Program, this thesis examines the structure of the Dagbani DP. It gives a systematic description of the different combinations of DP-internal elements, the order in which they occur, and also accounts for the derivation of these different element combinations based on theoretical assumptions presented in the literature. The semantic and morphological properties of DP elements such as articles, demonstratives, numerals, quantifiers and possessive pronouns are discussed. An analysis of their distribution in relation to the determiner head and in relation to each other is also presented. It is observed that aside the possessive pronoun which precedes the noun, all other elements occur post-nominally. Also, the difference in the order of DP elements in Dagbani and other languages is explained by movement operations triggered by the requirement to check one feature or another. It is observed as well that although languages may have the same sequence of elements, the derivation in each language could differ based on language specific features.