THE PARAMETRIC VARIATIONS OF ENGLISH AND KANURI NOUN PHRASES: A MINIMALIST APPROACH

Abstract

This paper examines the parametric variations of English and Kanuri noun phrases (NPs) within the theoretical framework of Principles and Parameters (P&P), and the study adopts Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist Approach (MA). In conducting the research, the researcher uses his native intuition to collect the data for this study. The secondary sources of data involve the use of three competent native speakers to validate the data. The outcome of the study reveals that there are differences and similarities between the two languages which are genetically different –Kanuri Nilo is a Saharan language while English is an Endo European language. The differences are: Kanuri is a head final language while English is head initial language. On the complement phrases, the two languages share dissimilarities –quantifiers and adjectives occur post head in Kanuri while the quantifiers and adjectives occur pre-head in English. Finally, the two languages share similarities in terms of noun plural formation morphologically suffixed to post head nouns and definiteness and agreement features [-Def] [+PL Num].