ABSTRACT
This chapter is an examination of the Rwa-Meru noun phrase (NP) in view of determining the ordering of adnominal modifiers in it in a bid to gain proper understanding of the structure of the Bantu NP. Like other Bantu languages in general, it is shown that the Rwa-Meru NP exhibits post-modification, though not in the same reverse order as in languages that exhibit pre-modification as suggested in Greenberg (1963). We also show that possessives and demonstratives tend to stick together as the closest head noun modifiers, and they are linked to the head noun by an overt associative marker that incorporates the possessive in its determiner form and is marked for agreement with the head noun. We further show that, like in several other Bantu languages, the relative clause in Rwa-Meru is marked by a (relative) demonstrative, which typically demonstrates that relative clauses are adnominal modifiers. Finally, we show that all other adnominal modifiers may occur between possessives and demonstratives closest to the head noun on the left and the relative clause furthest away from the head noun on the right, with quantifiers strictly preceding numbers and adjectives in that order. We then suggest that it is possible to stand by Greenberg's hypothesis, if we follow Achiri-Taboh (this volume) in suggesting that this ordering for Rwa-Meru is the result of historical abandonments of certain alternative strategies of adnominal modification.
