A morpho-syntactic analysis of qualifiers in Bantu languages

Abstract

The aim of this article is to comparatively analyse qualifiers in Bantu languages for structural positioning and syntactic functions. It focuses specifically on Xitsonga, isiZulu, Northern Sotho, and Swahili. Qualitative methods were employed. Data were collected through interviews and document analysis, and these were analysed using thematic and discourse analyses, respectively. The pro-drop theory underpins the study. Pro-drop refers to a linguistic phenomenon where a noun phrase is not expressed in certain contexts in certain languages. The findings reveal that in all four languages, the noun phrase precedes the qualifiers, and that qualifiers in these languages can also function as postmodifiers, where the emphasis and tone are directed towards the qualifier rather than the nouns. The study also noted that while qualifiers in the four languages are predominantly prefixal stems, the specific linguistic structures and concord systems of these languages vary significantly.