Nominal Structures in Adioukrou

This book is concerned with the study of the nominal structures in Adioukrou from a typological perspective. Nominal structures consist of nouns, noun phrases, possessive constructions, relative clauses, and complement clauses. These constructions are considered to be associated with nouns (Van Valin and La Polla 1997). Note that a nominal structure may be functionally defined as any syntactic category which can bear some grammatical relation within a sentence, such as a subject or an object (Trask 1993 : 189). The present work does not adopt a particular theory of grammar or a particular model of syntax ; it is theory-neutral. This position may be similar to the one by Rijkhoff, who presented his study on the noun phrase in a “more or less theory independent fashion” (2002: 2). This work seeks to provide a cross-linguistic account of the constituents of the nominal structures.