Abstract
This paper examines the robust phenomenon of bare nominal arguments in Nigerian languages and its implications for syntactic theory, particularly the universality of the DP Hypothesis and the mechanism of Case licensing. While languages like English restrict bare plurals and mass nouns to certain environments, languages such as Yoruba and Igbo allow virtually any noun to appear without overt determiners or number morphology in both subject and object positions. This presents a dual puzzle: (1) How are these nominals licensed as arguments without apparent Case marking? (2) What is the structural status of the nominal projection is it an NP, a reduced DP, or a language specific nominal category? We argue, based on novel syntactic diagnostics (coordination, modification, quantifier scope, and A' extraction patterns), that these bare nouns are not full DPs but are best analyzed as Numeral Phrases or simple NPs. Their licensing is not mediated by abstract structural Case in the standard sense, but by a configurational argumenthood requirement: a nominal is licensed as an argument if it occupies a designated thematic position (Spec vP/VoiceP for subjects, complement of V for objects) and enters into an Agree relation for φ features with a relevant functional head, without the necessity of a Case feature. This “Case free” licensing is made possible by the absence of a strong D layer that forces referential saturation. We further demonstrate that the apparent definiteness or specificity readings of bare nouns are contextually derived, not encoded syntactically by a D head. This analysis challenges the purported universality of the DP and forces a reconsideration of the functional sequence of the nominal domain and the parameters of nominal licensing across languages.