On the Structure of the Qualifier System in QkQ-Qsanyen 

Akeem Segun Salawli* 

Abstract 
The paper identifies the different types of qualifiers in Qk9-Qsanyen, 
one of the endangered African languages spoken in Ogori-Mag6ngo 
Local Government in Nigeria. It also examines and explains in detail the 
sequential co-occurrence of the qualifiers within the noun phrases. The 
paper believes that the language still retains the relics of the old 
patterning of the Qualifier-Qualified sequence of the Proto-language to 
the African languages under the sub-phylum of West-Benue-Congo 
which it belongs. 

1. Introduction 
QkQ-Qsanyen is a member of the West Benue Congo of the sub-phylum 
Niger-Congo family of the African languages (Heine and Nurse 
2001:31). It is the main language of the QkUro and Qsanyenro people 
living at Ogori-Mag6ngo Local Government Area in Kogi State of 
Nigeria. It is one of the endangered languages in the world and it has 
received a little recent serious scholarly academic attention. (Chumbow 
1982a&,b; Adegbija 1993, 2001, Salawli 2005, 2006a&b). The data for 
this study are drawn from many native speakers who served willingly as 
our informants. 

The purpose of this paper is to look at the qualifier system in QkQ-
Qsanyen by identifying different types of qualifiers in the language and 
discussing the sequential co-occurrence of these qualifiers in phrases. 

2. Headhood and Qualifier 
QkQ-Qsanyen is a SVO language and it is a head-first language. The 
Head parameter within the theoretical framework of Principles and 
Parameters as propounded by Chomsky (1981, 1986) deals with the 
position of heads within the phrases (NP, VP etc). A particular language 
consistently has its heads on the same side of the complements in all its 
phrases. In fact, head has been employed to divide the languages of the 

*Dr. Akeem Segun Sfilawu is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and African Languages, 
Obafemi Awo!owo University, lie lfe, Nigeria. 

163 



world into two. A language can be head-first or head-last. Chomsky 
(1981 :6) has this to say: 

Ideally, we hope to find that 
complexes of properties 
differentiating otherwise similar 
languages are reducible to a single 
parameters, fixed in one or another 
way. 

Chomsky & Lasnik 1993: 527 comment further on the issue: 
The phrase structure system for a 
particular language is largely 
restricted to specification of the 
parameters that determine the 
ordering of head-complement, 
head-adjunct and SPEC-head. 

For instance, while Ebira and English are head-first languages, Japanese 
is ahead-last language. (1) shows this clearly. 

(1) a. Ebira 

(i) NP: 6hin6yyii Okene 'KingofOkene' 

King Okene 

(ii) VP: re Qch<)ku 'buy rice' 

Buy rice 

b. English 

(i) NP: KingofEngland II. Broughtthechair 

c. Japanese 

(i) VP: Hon -o Katta 'He bought a book' 

Book buy 

164 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



(ii) PP: [Fune] ni 'on the boat' 

Boat on 

QkQ-Qsanyen is a head-first language as shown in (2). 

(2)a. NP: fpi/~SQ 'The eight car' 

·car eight 

b. VP: wan ududo 'kill.slaughter a sheep' 

kill sheep 

(2b) assumes that the Noun (N) - Qualifier (Q) sequence should be the 
pattern in any QkQ-Qsanyen noun phrase that consists of a qualifier and a 
qualified item. But it seems that there are some exceptions to this general 
format. This will be discussed fully in the next section of this study . 

.. 

3. Noun Qualifiers in Qkq-Qsanyen 
The focus of this section is to identify and discuss different types of 
qualifiers for the nouns in QkQ-Qsanyen with relevant data. Aw6buluyi 
(1978:30) defines a qualifier as follows: 

Any word or grammatical (i.e. acceptable) 
combination of words which qualifies a noun is a 
qualifier. Therefore the actual work of qualifiers is to 
narrow down the conceptual range of meanings of 
nouns. 

From this definition, one can deduce first, that any linguistic item that 
will be classified as a qualifier cannot occur in isolation in any sentence 
containing it. Second, a qualifier co-occurs with nouns only. Third, a 
qualifier in a noun phrase can be represented by a single word, or a phrase 
or by a clause. Both semantic and syntactic criteria can be employed to 
classify the qualifiers in Qk9-Qsanyen into different groups. All these 
observations shall be substantiated with relevant data as we progress in 
this paper. 

Akeem Segun Salciwiti 165 



3.1 Adjectival Qualifier 
In QkQ-Qsanyen, adjectives are usually used to qualify nouns. Unlike 
many African Languages such as Yoruba, Ed6 where their adjectives 
begin with consonantal segments, it is discovered that all Qk9-Qsanyen 
adjectives start with vowels and end with vowels. The language has an 
open-ended syllabic structure system. (3) presents the data for the 
adjectival qualifiers. 

(3) a. ¢sa 

Cloth 

b. ubo 
house 

c. 6wlin 

.soup 

d. agan 

hoe 

e. emumu 

orinrin 

black 

large . 

qrcinrcin 

sweet 

<Jyanyan 

red 

akitkitrn 

book white 

'Black cloth' 

'large house' 

'sweet soup' 

'red hoe' 

'white book' 

The italicized words are the qualfiers following the qualified nouns: ~sa, 
ub6' 6wun, agan and emumu. 

3.2 Numeral Qualifier 
Numerals in QkQ-Qsanyen can be grouped under two main headings 
namely cardinal and ordinal. We present these numerals in ( 4). 

166 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



4. A B 

6ir~ 'one' o~6ro 'first' 

$b<?r¢ 'two' ububuoro 'second' 

$ta 'three' ¢t~taro 'third' 

(¢)¢na 'four' <?n~naro 'fourth' 

Upi 'five' upupiro 'fifth' 

QpQnQQr¢ 'six' QpQnQQr¢r<? 'sixth' 

Uf<?mb¢r¢ 'seven' ufQmb9r¢r<? 'seventh' 

QnQkQnQkQnQ 'eight' <)nQkQnQkQnQrQ 'eighth' 

Ubuore 'nine' ubuorero 'ninth' 

Gulef<?/¢f<? 'ten' ~fQrQ 'tenth' 

The cardinal numerals are the ones under column A and they are used to 
indicate the exact quantity or number of nouns that they occur with. The 
data in (5) illustrate this: 

(5) a. ubo 'two houses' 

House two 

b. 'three fish' 

fish three 

c. agan <?n<?k<?n<?k<?n<? 'eight hoes' 

hoe eight 

Akeem Segun Salawid 167 



The numerals in Column Bare the ordinal ones which generally indicate 
the exact position of an object in a series. The phrases illustrating this are 
in(6). 

( 6)a. emumu c)t~taro 'The third book' 

Book third 

b. UJUn upupiro'The fifth door' 

door fifth 

c. c)s~n ufombc)r~rc) 'The seventh month' 

month seventh 

The structural position of these numeral qualifiers (both cardinal and 
ordinal) in relation to nouns they are qualifying is that the nouns - the 
head-words, occur in the initial position, then the qualifiers come after 
them. 

In addition; the ordinal qualifiers have different phonological structures 
from their cardinal ones. Looking at the data in ( 4) very closely, one can 
inf er that some ordinal qualifiers are formed from the cardinal qualifiers 
through the morphological processes of reduplication, suffixation and 
prefixation as shown in (7) 

(7) 

Root Partial Reduplication Suffixation Prefixation Result 

a. ¢ta 'three'-> t¢ta -> t¢ta +-ro-> 9-+t¢taro-> qt¢taro 

b. ¢na 'four' -> n¢na -> n¢na +-ro -> q-+n¢na+-ro-> c)n~naro 

c. upi 'five' -> pupi -> pupi + ro -> u-+pupi+-ro -> upupiro 

Meanwhile, some are formed only through the process of suffixation as 
presented in (8). 

168 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



(8) 

Root Suffixation Result 

a. Qp6.nQ(m; 'seven -> QpQnQQri; + r6 -> QpQnQQri;r() 'seventh' 

b. ()nQkQnQkQnQ 'eight' -> ()nQkQnc)kQnQ + ro -> QnQkQnQkQl)QTQ 'eighth' 

c. ¢f9 'ten' -> ¢f9+r6 -> ¢f9r()'tcnth' 

3.3 Demonstrative Qualifier 
Demonstrative qualifiers in Qkq-Qsanyen are specifiers of number. 
They indicate the number in terms of singular or plural. They are few in 
number. They are presented in (9). 

(9)a. ub6 'this house' 

house this 

b. ub6 'these houses' 

house these 

c. erunro <)nab¢ 'that farmer' 

farmer that 

d. erunro ~nabe 'those farmers' 

farmer those 

From the data in (9), it is shown clearly that c)n~ and c)nab~ are the 
singular demonstrative qualifiers while ~nan~ and ~nab~ are the plural 
demonstrative qualifiers. Also, the structural position of these 
demonstrative qualifiers in relation to the nouns is such that the nouns 
being qualified occur before these qualifiers. In addition, this language 
has only one definite article ay~. 

Akeem Segun Sa/awiti 169 



(IO)a. iya ay¢ yin uw6 ay¢ 'the mother buys/bought the goat 

Mother the buy goat the 

b. ~tqla Me ni erum~kaay¢ 'Tqla sleeps/slept in the afternoon' 

Tqlasleep in afternoon the 

3.4 Appositive Qualifier , , 
Appositive qualifier is one of the qualifiers in Qk9-Qsanyen. Quirk and 
Greenbaum (1973:276) outline the criteria for appositive constructions 
as follows:. 

Four units to be appositives, they must normally be 
identical in reference or else the reference of one must be 
included in the reference of the other ... In many cases, 
the co-reference and grammatical similarity will permit 
the omission of either appositive unit with a resultant 
acceptable and synonymous sentence. 

From this explanation, it means that for a constituent to be regarded as an 
appositive, it must satisfy the criteria of co-reference and similarity in 
syntactic status. yYe p:r;esent the data in ( 11) to show-case the appositive 
constructions in Qk9-Qsanyen. 

(ll)a. Ijim<? yin isuru, igila ¢k¢ka 

JimQ buy a type of bitter edible tuber yam big 

'Jim¢ buys/bought isuru, a big yam'. 

b. Oki, ~n'mro ay~ SU ibimpe 

Oki, farmer the marry Bimpe 

c. Audu, ik6gi $g6mina pila ~a ke 

Audu Kogi Governor amve come has 

•Audu, Governor ofKogi state has arrived' 

170 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



In al! the e~amples in (11), isuru, igila Qk~ka, oki, ~runro ay~, Audu 
and lk~gi. F;g6p:iina are !he appositives but they have different syntactic 
status. lsuru, Oki and Audu are the head-words of the noun phrases 
where the appositives: igila qk~ka, ~runro ay~ and Ik6gi F;g6mina 
function as their qualifiers. 

Using the criterion of co-reference as hinted by Quirk and Greenbauum 
(1973), we can generate two different sentences having the same 
semantic output from thedatain(l l) asin(12). 

(12)a. Ijim<) yin 1suru 

b. 

c. 

Ijim<) yin 

Oki SU 

igila<)k~ka 

ibimpe' 

$runro ay~ su ibimpe 

Audu pila $a ke 

ikogi i;:g<?mina pila $a ke 

'Jim<) buys/bought and edible 
yam' 

'Jim<) buys/bought a big yam' 

'Oki marries/married Bimpe' 

'the farmer marries/married 
Bimpe' 

•Audu has arrived ' 

'Governor of Kogi State has 
arrived' 

3.5 Relative Clause Qualifier , 
Another qualifier of the nominal items in QkQ-Qsanyen is the relative 
clause qualifier. The markers of the relative clause qualifier in the 
language are n~ or n~n~. All constituents that can perform the functions 
of subject, object or qualifier can be relativized in this language as 
presented in (13). 

(13)a. Aye) su idele 6gben 

Aye) marry Dele child 

'Aye) marries/married Dele's child 

Akeem Segun Salizwui 171 



b. AyQ n¢(n¢) SU idele ogben 

AyQ REL marry De le child 

'AyQ who marries/marriedDele's child' 

c. fdele 6gben n¢(n¢) Ayq SU 

De le child REL Ayq marry 

'Dele's child whomeAyq marries/married' 

d. idele n¢(n¢) Ayq SU y6gben 

De le REL Ayq marries his child 

"Dele whoseAyQ marries/married his child" 

· (13a) is the kernel sentence. It is the subject of (13a) that takes the 
relative clause qualifier in (13b ); while the object of (13a) is qual_ified by 
the relative clause qualifier in (13c). and, the nominal qualifier Ideie in 
(13a) takes the relative clause qualifier in (13d). in (13b-d), the relative 
clause qualifiers follow their head-words: Ayq, ldele, Ogben and Idele· 
respectively. 

3.6 Genitival Qualfier 
QkQ-Qsanyen has some grammatical items that do function as genitival 
qualifiers in noun phrases. They have grammatical categories of number 
and person as presented in (14). 

(14)a. Singular Plural 

1st person M¢¢ka T¢¢ka 

2nd person W¢~ka N¢~ka 

3rd person Y¢~ka B¢~ka 

172 Legon Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



b. 1. ikiba m¢~ka 

11. ikiba t¢~ka 

lll. ikiba w¢~ka 

IV. ikiba n¢~ka 

v. ikiba y¢~ka 

Vl. ikiba b~¢ka 

As shown in ( 14b ), the structural position of these genitival qualifiers in a 
noun phrase is that they always follow the nouns (head-words) to be 
qualified. Another observation is in the morphological composition of 
these genitival qualifiers. They are composed of the short pronouns in the 
language such as mQ, ti, WQ, n~, y~, b~ and the lexical item '~ka' in the 
language. 

3.7 Pronoun Qualifier 
In QkQ-Qsanyen, there are two types of pronouns: short and long ones. 
Either of the two can be used as qualifiers in the language. On the short 
pronouns functioning as qualifiers, they are monosyllabic and they also 
have allomorphic variations as a result of the operation of the vowel 
harmony in the language. (15) displays these pronoun qualifiers while 
( 16) contain their usage in grammatical constructions. 

(15) 

Singular Plural 

SETA SETB SETA SETB 

1st person mi m9 t i t~ 

2nd person WU WQ ni ne. 

3rd person yu y~ bi b~ 

Akeem Segun Salawili 173 



(16)a. i. 6ki gba mi emumu 16ki sees/saw my book' 

6ki see my book 

ii. Oki gba mq 'Oki sees/saw my friend' 

Oki see my friend 

b. i. Oki gba ti egbele 'Oki sees/saw our cutlass' 

Oki see our cutlass 

On the long pronouns functioning as qualifiers, they are bisyllabic and 
they have no allomorphic variations like the short pronoun because 
the harmonic constraints on or the tenseness· or laxness of the 
vowel of the verbs do not have any influence on them. They have 
a system of number like their short counterparts. These long 
pronouns are presented as follows in (17): 

(17) 
Singular Plural 

!st person Am¢ Atq 

2nd person Awq Anq 

3rd person Ay¢ Ab¢ 

The following sentences in (18) will reveal their structural positions in 
relation to the nouns that they are qualifying. 

(18) 

a. iya be. at<? isuda 'A mother beat/beats our brothers' 

mother beat our brother 

b. am~ ~~a ay~ I;~ade jq 'It is my cloth that Sade sold' 

my cloth FOC Sade sell 

174 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



There is one glaring observation to be noted in the data in (16) & (18) as 
regards the structural position of the short and long pronouns. The N-Q 
sequence is not followed at all. We have an inverted version of sequence. 
The qualifier mi, mq, ti tf, atq and amf are placed before the nouns 
'emumu, qrf, egbele, ~sa, isuda and ~sa - the head words of the noun 
phrases where the qualifiers function. 

3.8 Nominal Qualifier 
As in other languages, QkQ-Qsanyen does permit some nouns to qualify 
other nouns. These are labeled in this paper as nominal qualifiers. They 
may be human or non-human nouns. Anytime, we have grammatical 
structures involving these nominal qualifiers and qualified nouns, the N -
Q sequence order is changed to Q - Norder as we have in (3.7). (19) 
presents the data to buttress this syntactic observation. 

(19) a. owun Qt~l¢ 'The soup's pot' 

Soup pot 

b. qtun (>dqr¢ 'The ear's hole' 

ear hole 

c. uwo QmQdqr¢ 'dog's nose' 

dog nose 

d. ihisi iwa 'Bisi's behavour' 

Bisi behaviour 

e. ikoko oti 'Cocoa's tree' 

cocoa tree 

f. Eko 6gben 'Lagos child' 

Lagos child 

Akeem Segun Salawiii 175 



g. ¢sa 'Kemi's cloth' 

K~mi cloth 

One may try to find O\lt the, genesis of the difference in the qualifier -
qualified sequence in Qk9-Qsanyen. This paper subscribes to Salawli's 
(2006a) reconstruction proposal to the effect that the proto-language to 
the Afrjcan !anguages under the sub-phylum of West Benue-Congo 
which Qk9-Qsanyen belongs to (Heine & Nurse 2001:31), must have 
permitted the N-Q and Q-N patternings at one time before. This 
suggestion is a prodlfct o( analysis of the, cross-linguistic data. Jn all 
languages relating to Qk9-Qsanyen such as Igbo, Yoruba, I;:d6 and Ebira, 
the N-Q seque:qce is generally chosen as shown in (20) 
(20) a. Ebira 

ire hi ami 'my house' 

house my 

¢nu ozoza 'good yam' 

yam good 

QnQru ~papa 'first man' 

man first 

b. Yoruba 

a:;;Q m1 'my cloth' 

cloth my 

obinrin pupa 'A fair woman' 

woman red 

ile ow6 'A bank' 

house money 

176 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



c. Edo 

akaka m¢ 'my grasshopper' 

grasshopper my 

Qhil Egh6sa 'Egb6sa's wife' 

wife Egh6sa 

am~ iwin 'coconut's water' 

water coconut 

d. nwanyin ge 'your wife' 

wife your 

ulQ egwo 'A bank' 

house money 

Qf(( nmanu 'oily soup' 

soup oil 

Our assumption is that QkQ-Qsanyen still retains the relics of the old 
patterning in the short and long pronoun qualifies and the nominal 
qualifiers. 

4. The Sequential Co-occurrence of the Noun Qualifiers in 
Qkq-Qsanyen 

The focus of this section is to show the distributional patterning of the 
different noun qualifiers discussed in (3-3.8). Aw6buluyi (1978):42 has 
this to say on the sequence of the qualifiers in language: 

The order in which qualifiers occur with themselves is partially 
free and partially fixed. 

Akeem Segun Salawiti 177 



It is possible in the language to have a cluster of qualifiers in an orderly 
manner after a noun that will be functioning as the head-word of a phrase. 
We shall use the ta,ble i~ (21) to explain the sequential co-occurrence of 
these qualifiers in Qkq-Qsanyen. 

(21) Descriptive Numeral' Relative clause· Demonstrative• 

a Descriptive, + + + + 

b Numeral2 + - + + 
c Relative clauses3 - - + + 
d Demonstrative, - - + + 

(21 a) says that if the descriptive· qualifier follows the head-word closely 
then descriptive, numeral, relative clause and demonstrative qualifiers 
can co-occur with it as shown in (22). 

(22) a. i'.1w6 c)yanyan c)¢f9 'A tall red dog' 

Dog red tall 

b. uw6 c)yanyan ~ta 'Three red dogs' 

2 

Dog red three 

c. uw6 c)yanyan n~(n~) AyQ su 'A red dog which AyQ has' 

3 

Dog red RELAyc)have 

d. uw6 c)yanyan c)n~b~ 'that red dog' 

4 

Dog red that 

178 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



e. igila QlQlQr~ t¢¢r¢ ufQmbqr¢ 'seven long thin tubers 
of yam' 

1 1 2 

yam long thin seven 

(21 b) introduces numeral qualifiers as being the closest to the head-word 
and requires it to be followed by descriptive, relative clause and 
demonstrative qualifiers. It cannot be followed by another numeral. The 
distributional patterns are presented below: 

(23)a. ub6 upupiron¢ Ay¢ yin 'The fifth house that AyQ 
bought' 

2 3 

House fifth REL Ay¢ buy 

b. ub6 upupiro <?nab¢ "The fifth house" 

2 4 

House fifth that 

(21 c) introduces the relative clause qualifier immediately following the 
head-word and states that it can only be followed by another relative 
clause and demonstrative qualifiers. The data in (24) buttress this co-
occurrence. 

(24 )a. Ade n¢ f (>, n¢ ti ye eguru, $'1 enran 

Ade REL tall REL smg song come yesterday 

'Ade who is tall, who sang, came yesterday' 

b. alak¢ta n¢ Olli yin 

cassavaREL Olu buy this 

Akeem Segun Satawui 179 



'This cassava which Olu bought' 

(21 d) introduces the demonstrative qualifier immediately following the 
head-word and stipulates that it can only be followed by relative clause 
and demonstrative qualifiers as shown in (25). 

(25) a. umu <)nab~ n¢ t¢ wan 'That goat that we killed' 

Goat that REL we kill 

b. 6gben <)nab~ g¢d¢g¢d¢ 

child that exact 

The table in (21) does not account for the pronoun and nominal qualifiers 
because of their own parametric positioning. In addition, we must state 
categorically that not all demonstrative qualifiers can co-occur. The 
demonstratives such as ay~, c)n~, c)bab~, ~nab~, ~nan~ can not function 
together as shown in 

(26) * umu ¢nab~ ay¢ 

Goat that the 

5. Conclusion 
In this paper, we ,have looked at the eight different types of noun 
qualifiers in QkQ-Qsanyen and also we have been able to discuss the 
sequential co-occurrence of these qualifiers within the noun phrases in 
the language. 

180 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008) 



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182 Legan Journal of the HUMANITIES Volume 19 (2008)