The Syllable Structure of Tiv

Abstract

Linguistic studies reveal that every language has a particular way of combining its sounds to form words or parts of words called syllables. The paper looks at the syllable structure of the Tiv language, one of the Bantoid languages spoken mostly in the Middle Belt area of Nigeria, especially in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa and Cross River states of Nigeria. The objective of the study is to investigate the internal structure of syllables in the Tiv language in order to establish the regularities and restrictions inherent in the language. The study, therefore, aims at ascertaining the syllable patterns that are found in Tiv. This study adopts qualitative and analytical research design using the C V tier model of the phonological theory of syllable analysis as proposed by McCarthy (1979) and adopted by Clements and Keyser (1983), to explicate the permissible patterns of syllable structures in Tiv. Data for the study were gathered from native speakers of Tiv, whose language has not been corrupted by urbanisation and the researchers' intuitive knowledge of the Tiv language. It was found out in the study that, some of the permissible syllable structures in Tiv language include vowels and consonants like v, cv, ccv, cccv, cvc. It was also discovered that all the five vowels of the English alphabets may begin or end a syllable in the Tiv language. As found in English and other languages where the sequential occurrence of two or more consonants is termed consonant cluster, the Tiv syllable structure permits two or more consonants at the initial or final positions of the syllable which could occur as onset or coda, but they are not regarded as consonant clusters. They are regarded as co-articulations. The study concludes that Tiv language has a wide range of phonotactic constraints which if studied can contribute to the development of Tiv language.