Rugemalira, Josephat M.2016-08-252016-08-252007Rugemalira, J.M., 2007. The structure of the Bantu noun phrase. Working Papers in Linguistics, p.137.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11810/3567Studies of the noun in Bantu languages have traditionally concentrated on the morphology of the noun with its elaborate class system and the underlying semantic strands. When treatment of the noun and its dependents is undertaken or mentioned it is usually with special focus on the concord system (Nurse & Philippson 2003). Rarely have scholars paid attention to the syntax of the noun and its dependents.1 References to the structure of the noun phrase are usually very brief (see among others Massamba et al. 1999, Harjula 2004, Ngonyani 2003, Meeuwis 1998, Mous 2004). Part of the interest in the structure of the noun phrase relates to questions of syntactic categories and their determination. Of interest too is the question of what recursive structures are processable in natural language. This paper discusses the syntax of the noun phrase in several Bantu languages. It examines the larger syntax of the noun and its dependent elements and addresses the following questions: (i) what elements can modify the Bantu noun and in what order? (ii) which elements can co-occur and/or recur in the modification structure and what criteria are relevant in categorizing the dependents of the noun? (iii) is there a saturation point in the modification structure?enWorking Paper