A study of adjectives as post-modifiers in names of Ghanaian constituencies and districts

Harry Milton Hayford (University of Education, Winneba)

Linguistics Initiative
Vol. 6 No. 2 (2026)

This study investigates the usage of adjectives as post-modifiers in administrative names in Ghana. In English grammar, adjectives typically function as pre-modifiers. Drawing on Braj Kachru’s Concentric Circle of English and the framework of World Englishes, the study employs a mixed-method analysis of 276 constituencies and 261 districts in Ghana. The data reveals that 108 constituencies and 118 districts utilise post-modifier adjectives. The study finds that this naming convention is a direct inheritance from British colonial administrative practices. Historical evidence shows that post-modification in administrative nomenclature dates back to Old English, Celtic, and Norman French influences and is preserved in modern British parliamentary divisions to maintain the primacy of the central place name. This pattern is also observed in other Inner Circle (Canada) and Outer Circle (Nigeria, India, Singapore) varieties. The study concludes that the usage of post-modifier adjectives in Ghanaian administrative names is not a grammatical error or a localised nativisation, but a systemic feature of a globalised administrative English register.