 The Tlingit agentive suffix has a similar meaning to the English agentive suffix "-er", as in the words “writer”, “speaker”, “seller”.The above form is distinct from the homophonous "(du) yoo xh'atángi" “(his) language; (his) speech” which is the possessed form of the conversion "yoo xh'atánk".Story (1966) calls this derivational suffix the “instrumental”, however to avoid confusion with the instrumental case it is here termed the “instrumentive”.