A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

138 3 Phonology

Unlike the case with non-augment verbs, with augment verbs the
shortening also applies to high V's {i u}, which merge into the only short high
vowel 3. This is seen in Imprt and other short imperfective stems. In (114), the
LoImpfP shows a stem-final u or i, corresponding to a in the Shlmpf.

(114) Imprt of Augment Verb 'fly away'

gloss stem (plus -t-) LoImpfP Imprt

a. 'be dying' -jvrvri- -t-ljrari-t jarara-t

b. 'ruin' -s-vmrsu- -s-lmarsu-t s-ammarsa-t

There is good evidence that augment stems are V-final, cf. VblN ά-farru

(dialectally ae-farru) for 'fly away', a-jrsri for 'be dying', and a-s-ammarsu

for 'ruin'.

When an ablaut lengthening formative "protects" the stem-final V, it

appears as a full V. This is seen in all long imperfectives, which have a

formative χ-f in the final stem syllable, e.g. LoImpfP i-t-lfarru-t 'he flies

away' and the LoImpfP forms in (114).

There is one other exception to shortening with augment verbs. Some

augment verbs belong at least loosely to the category of "adjectival" verb.

The two diagnostics for adjectival verb are irregular perfectives, and avoidance

of the χ-pcl ablaut formative in the Resit stem. Of these diagnostics, irregular

perfectives are pertinent here. There are at least seven augment verbs with

PerfP CsCa-t- or CaCa-t- (dsema-t- 'be light reddish brown', daera-t- 'be

brown', kaesa-t- 'be speckled', m£eja-t 'be spotted', dala-t- 'be green',

mala-t- 'be white on head', fawa-t- 'be brown'), see (372.d) in §7.3.1.6 an

(393) in §7.3.1.13. In these stems, which often keep the -t- even before

V-initial suffixes, there is no V-Shortening before -t-. Their MaSg and FeSg

participles have either χ or e by VV-Contraction (37.d), e.g. MaSg dseme-n

(T-ka) or daeme-n (A-grm) 'light reddish brown', dalae-n (T-ka) or dale-n

(A-grm) 'green'.

The rule can be formulated as (115).

(115) Pre-Augment V-Shortening (Augment Verbs)

stem-final α —> as and {i u} —> a before Augment -t-

A similar Stem-Final V-Shortening applies to stem-final α (but not other

vowels) before Centripetal -\add after VV-Contraction; see §10.2.1.1.

With augment verbs, there is no real "jurisdictional" issue between Pre-

Augment V-Shortening and VV-Contraction (37). This is because

VV-Contraction applies to augment verbs in combination with V-initial

suffixes in a manner that preserves the stem-final full V, whereby i and u

survive to the surface and Id surfaces as e.