The Syntactic Structure of a Noun Phrase: Austroasiatic vs. Austronesia

The indigenous people of Malaysia consist of 18 ethnics who have their own languages. These people can be classified into three main categories, namely; Negrito, Melayo Proto, and Senoi. Each of these categories can be further sub-divided into different groups. For example, Negrito consists of six races, which are Kensiu, Kintak, Lanoh, Jahai, Mendriq, dan Bateq. Each of these races has its own language which is named after the respective race. The indigenous languages are of the Austroasiatic stocks. In Malaysia, however, the Malay language, which is one of the Austronesian stocks is the national language of Malaysia. The status of the Malay language being in a different stock lays a large implication on the native children who are trying to learn and acquire the language. Due to this, it is vital for us to be aware of the differences of word order between the two stocks, especially at the phrasal and sentential levels. This article discusses and analyzes the differences between the Malay and Kensiu noun phrases. The analysis on the noun phrase of these languages revealed that there are differences in the words that precede the head noun and the words that follow the head noun in the noun phrase of the Kensiu and Malay languages. Surprisingly, some of the word orders in the noun phrases in the Kensiu language are similar to the word order in the noun phrases of the Malay language although they are from different stocks.