Language/Nigerian-pidgin/Grammar/Noun-phrase

The morphosyntax of nouns in Nigerian Pidgin follows closely that which is found in many Benue-Kwa languages:

• the lexical properties of nouns (mass vs. count, abstract vs. concrete, etc.) and the syntactic, pragmatic, and discourse contexts within which they are utilized are in many instances the sole signals provided for the interpretation of gender, case, definiteness, and number distinctions in nouns;

• gender and case distinctions are never marked on nouns;
• definiteness and number distinctions in nouns are only optionally marked and when these are marked, nominal modifiers rather than affixes are used;
• when definiteness is marked, a definite article (dì) is used;
• when indefiniteness is marked, the word denoting the cardinal numeral ‘one’ (wo̱n) or ‘some’ (so̱m) is used;
• when plural number is marked, a postposed third person plural pronoun (dèm) is used, although reduplication and stative verbs such as ple̱nti ‘be plenty’ are also commonly used to signal plurality;
• when singular number is marked, the word denoting the cardinal numeral ‘one’ (won) is used.

À si  mòto

• I see vehicle       
• I saw cars/the car/the cars/a car/some cars.

À si mòto dè̱m

• I see vehicle pl
• I saw cars/the cars/some cars

À si dì mòto

• I  see the vehicle
• I saw cars/the car/the cars.

À si dì mòto  dè̱m

• I see the vehicle pl
• I saw the cars.

Àsi wo̱n mòto

• I see a vehicle
• I saw a car

À si so̱m mòto

• I  see  some vehicle    
• I saw cars/a car/some cars.         

À si so̱m mòto dè̱m

• I see some vehicle pl
• I saw cars/some cars.

Source

https://apics-online.info/surveys/17#section-7sentences

Related Lessons

• Personal pronouns, adnominal possessives, and reflexive pronouns
• Tense Aspect Mood Markers
• Serialized Verb Constructions