SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study is concerned with the different properties of Hausa attributive adjectives and other noun modifiers when they occur before or after the nouns they modify. It also attempts to account for the fact that the relevant ordering rules for such modifiers apply in pre-position but not in post-position. The study is divided into seven chapters. Chapter One discusses the scope as well as the general aims of the study and the sources of the data examined. Chapter Two examines the question of the status of adjectives as a separate lexical category in Hausa in view of the disagreement or uncertainty regarding this question in the literature, and its implications for our purpose in this thesis. Chapter Three deals with the experimental techniques adopted and some of the results obtained when we sought to determine whether other native speakers are also conscious of significant differences in the semantic interpretation of adjectives in pre- and postposition. In Chapter Four the formal and semantic properties of pre-position and post-position are examined. It is claimed that the difference in their formal properties has as its semantic correlate the different associations which adjectives in the two positions have; pre-position is associated with more explicit modification then post-position. So the two positions are analysed as paradigmatically opposed. Chapter Five deals with the question of adjective ordering. It is argued that adjective ordering is conditioned more by semantic than by any other factors. Evidence in support of this position is provided by the responses of our informants in the Preference and Completion Tests. In Chapter Six other (non-adjectival) noun modifiers are discussed and a syntactic typology to cover them suggested. In conclusion it is shown in Chapter Seven that our approach is valid not only with respect to Adjectives but also to other problems of Hausa.