The Structure of Basa Noun Phrase: An X-Bar Approach

This study describes the structure of Basa noun phrase. Basa people speak the Basa language and are found in four states in Nigeria namely, Banue, Kogi, Nasarawa and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Basa belongs to the Niger-Congo of Kainji language family. The study investigates the nature of Basa noun phrase: the constituents of NP and the functions of the NP in the language. Basa has not received enoug linguistic attention compared to languages like Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, lbibio, Efik, Fulfude among others. This basically prompted the researcher to carry out this study. Data for this study were sourced from native speakers of Basa. The intuition of the researcher as a native speaker also helped in gathering and analyzing data sourced. The Xbar theory which is a sub-set of the Government and Binding theory (Chomsky 1981) has been applied in the description of the noun phrase structure of Basa. The study reveals that constituents of the NP in Basa are the head noun, determiners, adjectives and prepositional phrases. It further reveals that NPs in Basa function as subjects of sentences, objects of the verb, direct object, indirect object, subject and object complements. The functions of NPs in Basa sentences are determined, not by semantic considerations, but by the structural position of a particular constituent in relation to the NP. The study, being an analysis of the structure of NPs in Basa contributes enormously to the organization of Basa grammar, covers certain gaps that have existed in scholarship of the language.