A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

84 3 Phonology

(62) Accent Types

a. trisyllabic or longer

lexically unaccented

penultimate accent

final accent

lexical

resyllabified

gloss

'Bambara'

'tortoise'

'fungus'

'gives drink'

isolation phrase-final

a-bsembaera χ "as-bsembaera

a-kaeyon χ "se-kasyon

baerbulle

i-S-3S3W

b. bisyllabic

lexically unaccented

penultimate accent

final accent

lexical

χ baerbulle

χ 1-S-3S3W

'thing' haeraet χ haeraet

'he sleeps' l-ttas χ i-ttas

'pipe' e-ben χ ^ae-ben

'monkey' kaeya χ kaeyd

'chicken' e-kaezz χ 'ae-kaezz

resyllabified 'we go' n-sjsl χ n-sjal

'he drinks' i-ssw χ i-ssw

c. monosyllabic

lexically unaccented 'we eat' n-aeks χ n-aeks

'famine' Ιάζι ι χ Ιαζ

final accent 'milk' ά-χχ χ nae-xx

When a stem (noun, verb, adjective) is followed by one or more
unaccented suffixes (and/or enclitics), the accent may have to shift to the right,
even when the suffix or clitic has no inherent accent of its own. For example, a
lexically unaccented trisyllabic stem heard as CvCvCv in isolation combines
with an unaccented syllabic suffix -Cv to give CvCvCv-Cv, since Default
Accentuation applies to the entire word form (not just to the stem). A stem
with lexical accent on its penult (CvCvCv or CvCv) would only be affected if
the unaccented suffix-clitic complex contained two syllables, as in
/CvCv-Cv-Cv/> CvCv-Cv-Cv. A stem with final accent would only be
affected in the rare case of a trisyllabic unaccented suffix-clitic complex. If the
suffix-clitic complex contains a morpheme with its own accent, then this
becomes the primary accent of the word.

3.3.1.1 Suffixes and clitics inducing penultimate accent

As noted above, some suffixes and clitics ending in a C are treated for
accentual purposes as though they had an additional syllable (a nonsyllabic
suffix counts as having one syllable, a monosyllabic suffix counts as having
two, etc.). At any rate, they require word accent on the (surface) penult instead