MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX OF TIV PERSONAL NAMES

The morphology and syntax of Tiv personal names is something that most of us take completely for granted because we are so used to mentioning and understanding personal names in our mother tonguewithout any conscious effort to know the complex linguistic structure that underlies almost every name in the language. This work therefore, has identified some constituent Morphological and Syntactic components for a number of Tiv names to reveal their meanings. The work also, revealed that, Tiv personal names range from simple lexical items (words) to complex sentences which help to reflect the grammatical structure of Tiv language. This work examines how Tiv names are morphologically structured taking into consideration the morphological processes and operations that are involved and how such structures contribute to the organization of Tiv grammar.