Possessor and possessed NPs in possessive syntax in Kiswahili Bantu

The paper describes three different types of possessive constructions in Kiswahili. As it is well-known, Kiswahili has two genitival prepositions -a 'of' and -enye 'having, with'. Both adnominals er endocentric elements. Regarding the adnominal -a, we discover that it has two major functions. It is used in genitival constructions and adjectival constructions. There are two genitival constructions based on -a. One without a possessive pronoun or its concord, e.g. mtoto wa mkulima 'child of the farmer, farmer's child' and the other with a possessive pronoun concord but often without its pronoun, e.g. mtoto wake mkulima 'farmer's child'. The possessive pronoun concord for 3rd person singular is {ke}. The paper shows that although both constructions have the same meaning, the possessive pronoun concord refers to a possessive pronoun yeye 'he, she' as the underlying head and not mkulima which is a common noun, e.g mtoto wake yeye mkulima 'lit child of-him he farmer'. Without such a description, Bantuists will be implying, as they have always done, that mkulima generates pronuoun concords without being itself a pronoun. The genitival pattern differs from the adjectival pattern such as nyumba ya mti 'house of wood, wooden house'. We argue that the adjectival pattern is a type of possessive, except that while the genitival has the possessor as the complement of the adnominal, the adjectival has the possessor as the external head (or subject NP) of the adnominal. The patterns are, therefore, mirror-images of each other. Finally, the paper points out that the adnominal -enye has possessive patterns, e.g. mkulima mwenye mtoto 'farmer having a child' and adjectival functions, e.g. mkulima mwenye mali 'a rich farmer, farmer with/having riches', too. In this case the possessor is always the external head (or subject NP) of the adnominal. We conclude that, in Kiswahili, the possessive is not as simple as Bantuists often assume it to be and further studies are required to understand its diversity better.