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. THi 3TI\UCTURZ or NOUN PHRMl£ iN AARI ., ," A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLHENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN LINGUISTICS BY ENGDA WELDBSEMAYAT , JUNE, 1992 ADDIS ABABA , -~ ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES THE STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASE IN AARI BY ENGDA WELDESEMAYliT Approved by: , Advisor Examiner Examiner ACKNOWLEDGEEENT My heart felt thanks are due to Dr. G. Despatie, my adviser, without whose valuable advice the completion of t his study would not have been possible. I am also highly indebted to the academic staff of the Linguistics Department for their unreserved effort in explaining some problems with respect to this study. I must express my gratitude to Asmerom G/Silassie, Mulugeta Seyoum and Wossenu Gebeyehu for their assistan,;e while I was dOing fieldwork in Jinka. I am grateful to Tesfaye Abera, Ayalew Mitiku and Getahun Amare for providing me with valuable materials. My acknowledgement is also due to my informants Azmachew Arfes, Fissiha Terrefe, Namsi Alka, Gebre Yintiso and Yilma Demissie. I would like to extend my gratitude to my brothers Ergete Vl/Semat and Mahidere W/Semayat for their comments and encouragement. I also express my thanks to WIt Chuchu Hamo for her patience in typing this thesis. ABSTRACT This study examines the structure of the Noun Phrase in Aari in the the X-bar theory of li~ht . of ~ackenduff (1977) and recent developments. This approach falls within the general framework of the Extended standard theory of generative grammar. The study identifies the lexical category of nominalsthat serve as a head element in an NP structure. With respect to this, two types of nominals have been investigated. Th$se are simple and derived nominals. Complements and specifiers form phrasal constituents wi th the. nominal heads. Concerning the complements of no~£ri.ls, three types of complements have been discovered. These are functioual arguments, restrictive modifiers and non-restrictive modifiers. These compl>;:Tcents occur at the levels of N', N", and NT", respectively. All the complements of the level NT occur preceding their nominal heads • . On the other hand, with the exception of a few complements, all the complements of the levels Nil and N'" occur following their heads. specifiers, two types of specifiers have R~gardinp, been i ·lentified. These are articles and quantifiers. They branch from the N"T a·nd NT! nodes T respectively, In the projection line.of nominal heads, both the class of articles and that of quantifiers occur in a peripheral position in relation to the complements.