This study seeks to identify and describe the different ways words in Tiv language are affixed, what morphological rules govern the process of affixation in Tiv language and how these morphological
realizations function in the language. The observation of the underdevelopment of the orthography, sound system and even grammar of Tiv language is the driving motivation of the researcher to describe an aspect of its grammar.
The findings reveal that, Tiv language marks number and possession on nouns and indicate tenses on verbs through the processes of prefixation, suffixation and circumfixation of inflectional affixes to roots while the affixation of derivational affixes result in the production of new words which either change or maintain their word classes to the root.
Identified derived classes are, verb to noun, adjective to noun and noun to noun. Quite peculiar is the fact that most derived words in Tiv are mostly nouns. The study used the linguistic theory of Item-and-Arrangement (IA) by Hockett 1954 which emphasizes the arrangement of morphemes and the processes that combine them to form larger units. Unstructured interview was employed using the random sampling technique to have a fair sample representation. The data collected was described and presented with the aid of tables. The paper concludes that, affixal process is one of the most productive word formation processes in Tiv language and has contributed substantially to the expansion of the Tiv vocabulary.
The paper recommends that more studies be carried out on other areas of the Tiv grammar.