The category DP in Xhosa and Northern Sotho

Abstract

This article investigates the morphosyntactic realisation of definiteness in Xhosa and Northern Sotho, representative of African languages, characterised respectively by the presence and absence of a noun class preprefix (i.e. initial vowel). The Minimalist theory (Chomsky, 1995) is employed as theoretical framework for the study. It is argued that definiteness in these African languages is realised morphosyntactically by the definite morpheme (l)a- which typically occurs as stem of the demonstrative, and which also appears in the inflectional morphology of nominal modifiers such as the adjective, nominal relative and verbal (clausal) relative. It is proposed that the definite morpheme -a- is a functional category Det(erminer) that heads argument Determiner phrases (DPs) dominating an NP. Evidence for this view is invoked from a range of definiteness phenomena in Xhosa, where the absence of the noun preprefix correlates with the non-occurrence of the definite morpheme -a- in the inflectional morphology of nominal modifiers, and from phenomena relating to the omissibility of the complementiser in relative clause constructions in Northern Sotho.