THE STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASES IN THE CIACIA LANGUAGE

Abstract

This article examines the structure and distribution of the noun phrase in the Ciacia language as part of a contribution to the documentation of the Ciacia language. Noun phrases, in formal linguistics, are a fundamental part of sentence structure since they are the core of a sentence that serves as the subject along with the verb phrase. In the Ciacia language, the subject of a sentence must agree with the predicate, as the number of subjects will affect the conjugation of the verb. However, specific studies focusing on the noun phrase structure of the language remain limited. This study is conducted through three steps. The first step is data collection. The data were collected from 10 texts in the Ciacia Language Text Book, written by Lee Ho Yeong, Hwang Hyu Jeong, and Abidin (2009). Since the texts were written in Hangeul, the manuscript was first transliterated into the Latin alphabet. In the second stage, the data analysis stage, noun phrases were identified using Carnie (2011) manual. A noun phrase in the text can be identified by first locating the noun as the head word, then examining any accompanying elements such as adjectives, numerals, or possessives that modify it, and finally confirming its function in the sentence by checking whether the group of words can function as a subject, object, or complement and can be replaced by a pronoun. In the last stage, the data presentation stage, the data was presented informally by systematically presenting examples of noun phrases based on their structural patterns, accompanied by clear identification of the head and modifiers, translations, and explanations of their syntactic functions within sentences. The result shows that a noun phrase in the Ciacia language can take the form of a basic noun, a noun with premodifiers, or a noun with a postmodifier.  Premodifiers include quantifier + N, while postmodifiers include noun + possessive suffixes (-u, -mami, -nto, -mu, -miu, -no), noun + possessive suffixes+ noun, noun + determiner (ia, ia ana), noun + adjective, and noun +relative clause. Most forms can function as a subject, object, or complement within a sentence structure. Though the reference of structure noun + possessive suffixes (-u, -mami, -nto, -mu, -miu, -no) needs to be mentioned in the preceding sentence when it functions as a subject.