LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 25:8 August 2025
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The Structure of Nouns and Noun Phrases

Nivedita Lahkar, M.A., Ph.D.

Abstract

A noun is the name of a person, place, animal or things. A noun can be preposed for the categories gender, number and case where as a noun phrase consists of a head noun, which may be followed by one or more modifiers. Trask (1997) “A noun phrase is an important syntactic category. The most obvious characteristic of a noun phrase is that it can perform certain functions in a sentence, such as acting as a subject, direct object or the object of a preposition” (p 154). This article is a humble attempt to describe the structure of the noun phrase in the Rongmei Naga language spoken in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland.

Keywords:Noun Phrase, Rongmei, Modifiers, Head

1.0 Introduction

A noun phrase generally consists of a head noun and modifiers. Givón (2001) has mentioned that numerals, adjectives, demonstratives, genitives, articles and relative clauses are noun modifiers and reveal hierarchical orderings” (p 2). Such noun modifiers may appear either after or before the head noun. The noun phrase which is composed of two or more head nouns linked by a co-ordinating connective is called co-ordinate noun phrase. A noun phrase formed by apposition or juxtaposition, called the appositive noun phrase may coordinate or attributive. This article articulates the structure of noun phrases in Rongmei language.

1.1. Who are the Rongmei Naga Tribe?

Among the inhabitants of Northeast India, the colorful Rongmei tribe of Naga captures a very special place in the part of the total population. They constitute a small linguistic community in this region (K.S.Singh, 1994). Rongmei Naga was formerly known as Kabui Naga. The British call them 'Kacha Naga' and Lushai called them 'Milong'.” (p 173). They were considered as the one of the aborigines of the Northeast. The total population of Rongmei is given in the census of India in the name of Kabui at about 94,758 (census 2001).

1.2. Fieldwork

The present paper is the outcome of the author's field visit in the month of December, 2018 in the different villages of Northeast India. However, most of the data was collected from Cachar District of Assam where a large number of Rongmei population was noticed. The secondary data on Rongmei is too scanty and taxonomic. The primary data on noun phrases were collected during fieldwork from both the sexes, i.e., male and female. The author has also concentrated on people from different age groups, i.e., younger, elder and aged people.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Nivedita Lahkar, M.A., Ph.D.
Bezera Anchalik College
Bezera Kamrup (R) Assam
nivedita.rm@gmail.com
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