Nominalization in TIV

Nominalization is a linguistic process of deriving nouns from other word classes or linguistic units. Nominalization is evident in many languages of the world. The Tiv language also exhibits nominalization. This paper critically analyses nominalization in Tiv. The objectives of the paper are: to determine the processes through which nominalization takes place in the Tiv language, the extent to which the processes of nominalization are productive in the Tiv language, and the classes of words and linguistic units that are nominalized in Tiv. Data were sourced from the native speakers of Tiv using the researcher – participant technique. The researchers documented the lexical items used during the interaction, determine the basic components of the lexical items and the word classes such lexical items belonged to. The intuitive knowledge of the researchers as the native speakers of the language was harnessed. The secondary data were sourced from the already existing literatures such as textbooks, journals and the internet. The theory adopted in the paper is Hokett’s (1954) structural theory whose models are the Item-and-Process (I.P) and Item-and-Arrangement (I.P). It has been found out that the processes through which nominalization takes in the Tiv language are prefixation, prefixation plus some modifications, tonality and desententialization (sentence deconstruction). These processes are discovered to be very productive in nominalization in Tiv. It has also been found out that verbs roots and adjectives are the classes of words that are nominalized (lexical nominalization) in the Tiv language together with sentences (syntactic nominalization).


Introduction
Linguistics as a field of study has many branches which morphology is one of the branches. Morphology is very essential as it studies the internal structure of words and words formation processes. Nominalization as a morphological process is a process of deriving a noun from some other word classes. Nominalization has been attested in many world languages such as English, Igbo, Tee among others. Nominalization is also evident in Tiv, one of the Bantu groups of languages majorly spoken in Benue State. This paper seeks to analyse nominalization as a morphological process in the Tiv language.

Methodology
The methodology adopted in this paper is descriptive in nature. The paper uses the primary and secondary sources of data. The primary data were sourced from the native speakers of Tiv as they interact with the researchers. In such interactive situation, the researchers wrote down some lexical items used, identified the basic components such lexical items have, determine the world classes such lexical items belong to. The intuitive knowledge of the researchers as the native speakers immensely helped in data gathering, refinement and subsequent analysis. The secondary sources of data were from the already existing literatures such as textbooks, journals, internet among others. Nominalized nouns were picked from some of the literatures in Tiv and analysed.

Nominalization as a derivative process
According to Anyanwu and Omego (2015), nominalization is a process of deriving a noun from some other word classes (as in 'ability derived from 'able', 'failure' derived from 'fail', 'dancing' derived from 'dance') or the derivation of a noun phrase from an underlying clause (as in "His answering the phone was surprising" derived from "He answered the phone). From the foregone examples, 'ability' as a noun is derived from the adjective able', 'failure' as a noun derived from the verb 'fail', 'dancing' a gerundive noun derived from the verb 'dance'. Chomsky (1970) posits has two main types of nominalization: lexical and syntactic (grammatical) nominalization. Lexical nominalization produces linguistic forms belonging to the lexical category of noun while syntactic nominalization creates nominal expressions that do not have lexical status (Shibatani and Awadh, 2009). Alternatively lexical nominalization is a derivational process of word-formation where nouns are derived from some other lexical categories, typically a verb or an adjective, by modifying the root (Anyanwu and Omego, 2015). Example, 'legal, legalize, and legalization (Anyanwu and Omega, 2015).
The study relates to the present too. Its point of departure from the present study is that, it looks at Tee as a language and restricted to lexical nominalization. The present study seeks to analyse both lexical and grammatical (syntactic) nominalization in the Tiv language. Nominalization is also evident in Igbo language. Maduagwu (2010) researched on 'aspects of nominal derivation in Igbo'. She examines this linguistic phenomenon and finds two categories of derived nouns in Igbo language viz: nouns formed from nominal compounding and nouns formed from sentences. The examples of the nouns formed from nominal compounding are as follows: The study also examines how nouns denoting ideas of excessiveness could be derived, nouns derived through pronominal 2 position-switching and auxiliary deletion among others are examined. From all the above researches examined, none considers the Tiv language majorly spoken in Benue State hence the need for the present study.

Theoretical Framework
This paper is anchored on Hockett's (1954) structural theory whose models are Item-and-Arrangement (I.A) and Item and Process (I.P). The Item-and-Arrangement (I.A) model considers both roots and affixes as morphemes with at least one allomorph of each, stored in the lexicon (Maxwell, 1998). This means that in 'independently' the root is 'depend' and the other morphemes 'in-', '-ent', and 'ly' are affixes and are both listed in the lexicon. Alternatively, the Item-and-Arrangement theory looks at the analysis of the structure of words by decomposing or separating words into their immediate components (Ajim, 2018). The model sees inflectional formatives and derivation as a process of arrangement of items such as affixation of bound morphemes onto the base in its simplest form, this manner of analyzing word form (i.e. Item-and-Arrangement) treats words as if they were made of morphemes put after each other (concatenated) like beads on a string (Ajim, 2018).
Item-and-Process model has it that a word form is the result of applying rules that alter a word-form or stem in order to produce a new one. For example, an inflectional rule takes a stem, changes it as is required by the rule, and an outputs a word form; a derivational rule takes a stem, changes it as per its own requirements, and outputs a derived word; a compounding rule takes a word form and similarly outputs a compound stem (Spencer, 1991). In other words Item-and-Process treats word-formation as not only arrangement of linguistic elements but also the involvement of processes. The model holds that affixes are processes, that is, affixes are morphological rules that exist in a separate component of grammar. Based on the model, in the word singer, it is only the root 'sing' that is listed in the lexicon, the suffix '-er' is only a morphological rule of deriving a noun from the verb 'sing'. The two theoretical models examined here are suitable in the analysis of nominalization in Tiv. The application of the models helped in accounting for the different linguistic components that come together to derive nouns from other words classes and the processes involved whether affixation, modification, compounding, reduplication, tonality, sentence deconstruction (desententializaton) among others

Nominalization in Tiv
In the Tiv language, nominalization takes the following processes (Table 1-4): (a) Prefixation: This is a type of affixation where a linguistic element is attached to the beginning of a root word. The element that is attached to the initial position of the root word is a prefix. Prefixation is a very productive process in nominalization in the Tiv language as seen below: As buttressed from the above table, it is crystal clear that nouns can be derived from words by prefixing 'm' to the root verbs proving prefixation as a productive process in nominalization in Tiv. From the table 2, it could be observed that 'm-' used in the above example has no meaning on its own but when added to the root verbs, the verbs are changed to nouns making the prefix 'm-' as used in the above examples as a nominalizer. imaagh "bulding" From the above presentation, it could be observed that some verbs roots are changed to nouns through prefixation and some modifications. In the above table, 'm', 'a' and 'i' are used as prefixes. In the first example 'm-' is prefixed to the root 'gema' (change/turn) and the last letter of the root verb 'a' deleted to derive the noun 'mgem' (dynamism). In the second example, 'm' is prefixed to 'kaa' (say) and (-n) suffixed to 'kaa' to produce 'kaan' (saying) and 'em' further suffixed to derived 'mkaanem' (speech saying) which is a noun. In example three, 'm' is prefixed to 'zua' (join) and /ua/ replaced with /oo/ to derive 'mzoo (union/congregation). In example four, the base verb 'er'(do) has been prefixed with 'a' and inflected with its continuous tense '-en' to derive 'aeren' (acts/actions) which is a noun. In the same manner, 'i' is attached to 'lam' (speek), 'tuha' (insult), 'sar'(desire) an 'maa' build at the beginning with addition of certain letters at the medial and final positions to derive the nouns: "ilyam (speech), ituhanev(insult) and isharen (desire)." The above table 3 shows the derivational formation of nouns from adjectives. It could be observed that nouns are derived from adjectives by prefixing 'm', 'mba', 'i' and 'u' to the base of the adjectives. These prefixes are bound morphemes and have no meaning when they stand alone but in the context they are used, they function as nominalizers. From the table 4 demonstration, it could be observed that some adjectives can be nominalized by prefixing and suffixing linguistic elements to the base as in "m + doo (good/beautiful) + m → mdoom (beauty)," some can be nominalized by prefixing, infixing and suffixing linguistic elements to the base as in " i + bume (stupid/foolish) + -y-+ gh → ibyumegh (stupidity/foolishness)" where 'i-' is the prefix, 'bume' is the root or base, '-y-' is an infix and '-gh' is a suffix.  "to uproot, to close" wúhé, wúhē "coldness" "co-wife" 23 yàngè (verb) yàngē (verb) "to dress with charms," "to prevent, to prohibit" yángé "sun/day" 24 tsēr (adjective), tsèr (verb) "hot or warm", "to be neat/multiply" tsér "a local Tiv plate" 25 zèndè (verb) "to walk" zéndē "a journey" From the table 5 demonstration, it could be observed that some Tiv verbs and adjectives can be nominalized by variation in tone. In the above examples, changes in tonal marks change adjectives and verbs to nouns as in jìjà [dƷìdƷà] -a spoilt object → jìjá [dƷìdƷá] -castor plant, and bēndè [bēndè] -touched → béndé [béndé] -a kind of 'amulet'. In line with the Item-and-Arrangement (I.A) and Item-and-Process (I.P) models, the linguistic items used in the above examples are the words and the tonal marks, and the process employed to nominalized the adjectives and verbs is tonality and the tonal marks used are the nominalizers. Suurshater "a female name -personal noun" From the table 6, it could be seen that desententialization is very productive in nominalization in Tiv. Desententialization is a morphologicl process whereby sentences are changed or converted into words (Ajim, 2018:69). In desententialization, sentences are deconstructed (sentence deconstruction) to form words. In the above sentences, the sentences are deconstructed by joining together the linguistic elements that constitute the sentences to form words as in "mba eren tom (they are working)" deconstructed by co-joining the linguistic elements to form the noun "Mbaerentom (workers/labourers).

Contribution to Knowledge
The paper contributes to knowledge by giving a linguistic insight on nominalization in Tiv. It unveils the processes through which nominalization takes place in the Tiv language such as prefixation, prefixation plus some modifications, tonality and desentenctializtion (sentences deconstruction). The paper proves the extent to which

Summary and Conclusion
Nominalization is a linguistic process whereby other words classes and sentences are converted or changed into nouns. On the lexical parlance, verbs and adjectives are nominalized in Tiv. Syntactically sentences are also nominalized through the process of desententialization. Other processes of nominalization in Tiv are prefixation, prefixation with some modifications and tonality. In conclusion, nominalization as a derivative process is very essential in word creation and helps in enriching the Tiv language. As a morphological process, it increases the number of words available in the Tiv language and used in the interactions of the language users.

Recommendations
Nominalization is evident in many languages of the world therefore, researches should be conducted on this vital morphological process in those languages. This will increase the number of linguistic researches and add to the body of knowledge.