A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

3.5 Syntactically controlled phonological processes 159

b. Syncope (numerous examples), masculine

eras ers-αη 'sharp pain'

e-baekaer l-bakr-an 'young ram'

c. Syncope (numerous examples), feminine

t-elaeq-q t-elr-en 'knife'

t-effar-t t-efr-en 'hobbles (fetters)'

d. VV-Contraction of overt stem-final V, antepenultimate accent (rare)

e-m-aesli l-m-aesl-αη 'voice'

t-a-kando-t-t t-l-kand-en 'water lily tuber'

e. VV-Contraction of deletable stem-final V, antepenultimate accent

(rare)

ae-foll "l-foll-an 'Fula man'

e-wselaenf i-waelaenf-an 'melon greens'

In (137.a), a stem-final u in the Sg corresponds to a desyllabified w in the
PI. The V is therefore not deleted as such, but it loses its status as syllabic
nucleus. These are the only two examples known to me. In (137.b), which is
much more productive, Syncope is part of the mix in the PI. In the feminine
cases in (137.c), we cannot tell if the Sg has a lexical penultimate accent, but
one can infer from the unaccented plurals that they do not. In (137.d), an
audible stem-final V in the Sg undergoes VV-Contraction (39.a) in the PI with
the suffix-initial V. In (137.e), there is no audible stem-final V in the Sg, but
we might posit a deletable final V on the grounds that the MaPl takes the form
-an with full V (§4.1.2.13). In specific cases there may be additional evidence
for a stem-final V, e.g. for 'Fula man' in (137.e), cf. FeSg t-a-folli-t-t 'Fula
woman' with stem-final i (§4.1.2.4).
The cases in (137.d-e), where VV-Contraction leads to default accent in
the PI, are not typical. More often, VV-Contraction (39) has no apparent effect
on a marked lexical accent (138).

(138) No Lexical Accent Erasure with VV-Contraction

singular plural gloss

e-daehi [e.g. R] i-daeh-αη 'sand'

ά-laeda i-lsed-an 'fly (insect)'

See §4.1.2.13 for lists of similar examples.
One might argue that χ-Erasure actually has applied in (138). This will
generate the correct forms in (138) if the order of rules is χ-Erasure, then
Default Accentuation, then VV-Contraction. However, this would decouple
χ-Erasure from VV-Contraction, in spite of the evidence in (137) for a