Agentive noun formation strategies in Tiv language

Abstract

The study was designed to prove that agentive nouns are found in Tiv just like in any other language in consonance with the claims of Universal Grammar Theory. The study aimed at identifying the agentive noun formation strategies in Tiv, which indicate what a person does as a job, what they do habitually or at a particular time, and their nationality or origin. The researchers used their intuitive knowledge of Tiv to collect data for the study. Lexical items which mark the doer of an activity or action and the professional and nationality status of a person were collected and analysed. The study discovered that the formation of agentive nouns in Tiv is done by compounding rather than prefixation since or ‘person/man’ and kwase ‘woman’ are independent words, which are attached to other nouns,  progressive forms, and adjectives to derive agentive nouns in the language.