A Study of Determiner Projection (DP) in Kana

This paper is based on the study of determiner projection (DP) in Kana. Kana is the language of the Kana people and part of Gokana people in the Khana and Gokana Local Government Areas of Rivers State in the south-south region of Nigeria. The paper discusses determiner projection in Kana with insights form government and binding theory proposed by Noam Chomsky in the early 1970s. The article points to the fact that the determiner projects maximally to become the head of the DP in Kana. Determiners in Kana include the definite article, the demonstrative, the quantifier, the numeral, the possessive pronoun, and the totalizer. There is another productive system of modifier called the numeral classifier. Numeral classifiers occur as a result of the use of numerals and they are found to occur with numerals. In Kana, determiners project to the D1 and ultimately project to the DP. The use of demonstratives is based either on the speaker or on the hearer in the language. This is different from what obtains in English that demonstratives are only based on the speaker. Whereas the demonstrative ama depends on the point of view of the speaker, ámá depends on the hearer. The purpose of this study is to discuss the Kana language using modern grammatical approach of government and binding. The data for the study were gathered from two sources; primary and secondary. The primary data were obtain from personal interaction with mature speakers of the language and my own intuition as a competent speaker. The secondary data were gathered from materials in the library. This work stands as a useful material for teachers and students of linguistics and English who wish to embark on syntactic study using modern approach.