Strategies for marking tense and aspect in Tiv

This article examines the realisation of tense and aspect (TA) in Tiv, a Bantoid language spoken in Nigeria. Tense and Aspect distinctions are marked through a combination of morphological parameters, including subject prefix tone, vowel alternation, inflectional suffix choice and tonal suffixes on the verb stem. The study employed a qualitative research approach, and data were collected through eliciting verbal paradigms, document review and oral interviews. The data were analysed, used in sentence construction and linearly glossed using the Leipzig glossing rules. The findings suggest that, while Tiv marks tense morphologically and periphrastically, the present tense lacks overt markers and often overlaps with the progressive aspect, creating analytical challenges. Aspect in Tiv is divided into the perfective and imperfective; the imperfective is further divided into the habitual and progressive. Additionally, there is a fine line between what constitutes the present and the progressive in Tiv. The study argues that although general principles for TA encoding in Bantu languages exist, Tiv demonstrates that such principles are not universally applicable. The language’s unique grammatical patterns underscore the importance of fine-grained, language-specific analysis in typological studies of tense–aspect (TA) systems.