An OT-LFG account of the syntax of the Determiner Phrase in Kafire

Abstract

This study addresses the syntax of the determiner phrase in Kafire in an OTLFG perspective. This syntax is characterized by the interaction of various constraints that determine the correct output. There is a constraint that requires most nouns in Kafire to be part of a determiner phrase whose determiner has to be lexically realized. There is also another constraint that prevents a set of nouns of  gender 1 to have such a lexically realized determiner, but which forces them to fill both an N and D nodes. Yet, this does not apply when the noun and the expected lexically realized determiner are not adjacent, in which case the lexical form of the determiner appears under the D node. The study captures and formalizes these facts with an OT-LFG formalism. It is the first study to pay much attention to this phenomenon in Senufo languages, especially in Kafire.