Nominal Modifiers in Ikwere

Abstract

Ikwere is an Igboid language spoken in four (Ikwerre, Emohua, Obio/Akpor and part of Port Harcourt Local Government Areas (LGAs)) of the twenty-three LGAs of Rivers State of Nigeria. It adopts a descriptive approach in the analysis of nominal modifiers in the language. The paper identifies the adjectives, qualificative nouns, demonstratives, quantifiers, numerals, possessives and relative clauses as the seven sub-classes of nominal modifiers in the language. It notes that most of the modifiers belong to the close class of words in Ikwere. Syntactically, all nominal modifiers predominantly occur in post-head position, but few of them, in addition, occur in pre-head position. It is observed that high tone plays a significant contribution in the derivation of most of the nominal modifiers in the language. It is expected that this paper will serve as a useful reference material to the documentation of linguistic features in Ikwere and other (related) languages.

Keywords: Nominal modifiers, Adjectives, Qualificatives, Quantitatives, Numerals