DATOS CLÍNICOS DE LOS CARCINOMAS EPIDERMOIDES CUTÁNEOS

The Swahili NP is made up of determiners (such as demonstratives, possessives, numerals, ordinals and quantifiers) and modifiers (such as adjectives and relative clauses). Like many Bantu languages, Swahili maps all these elements in the post-nominal position of the head noun, except for the distributive determiner kila ‘each/every’ and deictic demonstratives such as h-, h_o and -le (Krifka, 1995; Rugemalira, 2007). These exceptional elements are mutually exclusive in the pre-nominal context within the Swahili NP. I start with a description of determiners and then continue to that of modifiers. Prior to these descriptions, it is useful to consider the following table showing the NP structure of Swahili.

51

Table 2.3: The Swahili NP structure

01 0 1 2 3 4 5 635 ₇

Dem. Nouns Poss. Num. Ord. Adj. Quant

.

Assoc. phrase

Rel. clause hawa rafiki zangu watatu wa

kwanza wazur i wote wa Tanzania ambao wanasoma

these friends my three first good all of

Tanzania

who are

studying ‘All these first three good Tanzanian friends of mine who are studying’

2.5.1.1 Pre-nominal determiners

The table above shows that the demonstrative is the first element in the nominal domain. Swahili has three types of demonstratives, viz. proximal (h-), medial (h_o) and distal (-le) demonstratives (Leonard, 1995; Lyons, 1999). The table shows that the demonstrative h- ‘this/these’ occupies the leftmost position in the Swahili NP structure. Yet, this is not its canonical position. It normally follows the head noun. Such a movement to the leftmost position is associated with performing deictic functions (Dryer, 2005; Leonard, 1995; Lyons, 1999) or avoiding potential competition with other determiners in the post-nominal position (Rugemalira, 2007). The second pre-nominal determiner is the distributive determiner kila ‘each/every’, as in kila mtu ‘every person’. In contrast to demonstratives, the distributive determiner is limited to the initial position of the Swahili NP.

2.5.1.2 Post-nominal determiners

Table 2.3 shows that the possessive determiner immediately follows the head noun. No other element can come between the head noun and the possessive determiner in Swahili. The following example shows the positions occupied by the possessive and the post-nominal demonstrative within the Swahili NP structure.

(61) a. Viatu vyangu vile

N Poss. Dem.

‘Those shoes of mine’

b. Bustani yangu ile

N Poss. Dem.

‘That garden of mine’

35 _{The elements that are italicised from Slots (2) to (6) do not occupy fixed positions; they are mobile} within the four slots in the presence of all other elements. When the other elements are absent, each can co-occur with the head noun as in rafiki wote ‘all friends’, which combines the noun and the quantifier (Rugemalira, 2007).

52

As exemplified in (61), possessives normally come immediately after head nouns in Swahili. Other post-nominal determiners are numerals, ordinals and quantifiers. Rugemalira (2007) noted that all these elements are mobile in the post-nominal position. They do not have a fixed order of occurrence.

2.5.1.3 Adjectival modifiers

Adjectives follow head nouns in Swahili. Likewise, they do not have a fixed position in the presence of determiners such as numerals, ordinals and quantifiers. All these are mobile in the post-nominal position. In addition, more than one adjective can post-modify the head noun in Swahili, as shown in the following example.

(62) a. Viatu vyangu vizuri vyeusi

N Poss. Adj. Adj.

Shoes mine nice black

‘My nice black shoes’

b. Gari lako zuri jeupe

N Poss. Adj. Adj.

Car yours beautiful white

‘Your beautiful white car’

Additionally, when adjectives co-occur with a possessive determiner in Swahili, they generally follow the possessive determiner within the post-nominal position. The position of adjectives in Swahili stands in contrast to the position of adjectives in English. As described in Section 2.2.1, English adjectives canonically pre-modify head nouns.

2.5.1.4 Relative clause modifiers

Another modifier of the head noun in Swahili is the relative clause. Before showing how relative clauses post-modify head nouns, it is vital to explain what is normally referred to as the -o- of reference in Swahili. The term reflects the referential function of the Swahili morpheme -o-. The morpheme is normally used to refer to an entity which has already been mentioned or is about to be mentioned in the discourse. This referential marker is also known as the relative marker (RM). According to Mpiranya (2015), Schadeberg (1989) and Vitale (1981), the Swahili RM occurs in three distinctive distributional patterns: (i) at the end of the verbal complex (as a suffix), (ii) within the verbal complex and (iii) at the end of the relative pronoun amba- (as a suffix).

53

When the RM is attached to the final position of the verbal complex, the verbal complex will have an [SM + verb stem + RM] pattern. The RM in the suffix position is usually non-tensed. The following example shows the RM suffixed in the verbal complex.

(63) (watu) watembeao

(watu) wa- tembe- a- o

(people) SM2- walk- FV- RM2

‘(the people) who walk’

In the second distributional pattern of the RM in Swahili, i.e. when the RM occurs within the verbal complex, it usually occurs after the tense marker (TM). The following example is illustrative.

(64) Nyumba iliyojengwa

Nyumba i- li- yo- jeng -w- a

House SM1- pst- RM1- build- pass- FV

‘The house which was built’

In contrast to the suffixed RM in (63), the RM situated within the verbal complex as in (64) is tensed.

In this type of distribution, the RM is attached at the end of the relative pronoun amba- to form a relative clause, as in the following example.

(65) (gari) ambalo linaenda

(gari) amba -lo li- na- enda

(the car)Rel.PR –RM1 SM- prs- move

‘(the car) that is moving’

In this particular example, the relative pronoun amba-lo ‘that/which’ refers to the car. Mpiranya (2015:70) refers to the RM as a “reference pronoun”. Normally, it is used when the speaker wants to direct the hearer’s attention to a unique entity. In (65), for example, the use of –o directs the hearer to attend to the moving car only. Therefore the car is uniquely definite (cf. Lyons, 1999). Having introduced Swahili relative clauses, let us see the positions they occupy in post-modifying Swahili head nouns.

Relative clauses in Swahili normally post-modify their respective head nouns from the rightmost position of the nominal complex. They follow all other post-nominal elements as illustrated in (66).

54

(66) a. Wale watoto ambao wanasoma

Wale watoto ambao wanasoma Dem N Relative clause ‘Those children who are studying’

b. Hao ndugu zangu wanaoishi mjini

Hao ndugu zangu wanaoishi mjini Dem N Poss Relative clause

‘Those relatives of mine who are living in town’

The final position of the relative clauses italicised in (66) concurs with Rugemalira (2007). The majority of the participants in his study rejected Swahili sentences with relative clauses in non-final position. One should note the similarity between Swahili and English relative clause modifiers –they both post-modify nouns in their respective nominal complexes.

In summary, the survey of the Swahili NP structure shows that distributive determiners, deictic demonstratives, possessives and relative clauses occupy fixed positions in relation to the head noun. Moreover, except for distributive determiners and deictic demonstratives, all other types of determiners follow the head noun. The survey also shows that Swahili numerals, ordinals, adjectives, quantifiers and associative phrases are mobile within the post- nominal position of an NP (see Rugemalira (2007:144), for additional relevant data). The following description focuses on the Swahili verbal complex.