Yoruba Nominal Expressions - Genitive Constructions, Construals of Bare nouns, Marking salience and specificity and Strategies of Plural Marking

This book is the published version of the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Oládiípň Ajíbóyč which he defended at the Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Canada in October 2005. It departs from most previous work on Yorůbá Grammar in the sense that rather than being purely a descriptive work, it attempts to provide a theoretical analysis of the internal and external syntax of Yorůbá nominal expressions showing how phonology interacts with syntax and how syntax interacts with semantics; using Chomskyan Principles and Parameters approach to language. -I found the reading of the various chapters both inspiring and rewarding, in that they manage to clarify a number of central points of the grammar of Yorůbá, such as the syntax of plurals and possessives, that of adjectives and relative clauses, and the grammar and interpretation of bare nouns as well as that of specific and salient DPs. In many cases, the author has managed to offer analyses of these domains that go deeper than any other analysis of Yorůbá that I know of, and that have a bearing on various issues of theoretical interest.- Professor Guglielmo Cinque.