218 4 Nominal and pronominal morphologyt-a-kbstte-t-t t-l-kbatta 'pinch (of sth)'
t-a-kmatte-t-t t-l-kmstta 'pinch (of sth)'
t-a-kssnni-t-t t-1-ksanna 'vaccination'b. like preceding but with Sg stem-final semivowel absent in PI
t-a-massYoy-t t-l-mssra 'carrion'The Songhay borrowing ae-jasu 'calabash' (masculine) has an irregular
accent shift in PI 1-jusa. This may be parasitic on (analogical to) the surface
accent shift in the corresponding feminines: Sg t-as-jasu-t-t, PI t-l-jusa.
4.1.2.17 Conditions for Plural «i α» instead of «u α»
As just seen in §4.1.2.16, above, the unsuffixed ablaut plural has a
melody that results in such surface vowel sequences as bisyllabic «u α» when
the Sg has a full V in the penultimate syllable. However, there are certain cases
where we get i instead of u.
First, if the singular stem already has an i in a nonfinal syllable, such as
the penult, the plural retains i. In the lists of stems with «u α», <o u α», and
similar plural vowel sequences (§4.1.2.12, §4.1.2.15), I find no examples
where singular i has been converted to u.
(192) Sg i = PI i in Stem
singular plurall glosst-a-Timi-t-t t-l-rima (A-grm) 'sitting' (Vrym)
a-s-injsd i-s-lnjad (T-md) 'turban'
[Sg more often a-s-anjad]
t-s-sisak-k t-i-sisak (A-grm) 'Bergia herb'
[non-ablaut affixal PI in Τ -ka]
t-ltter-t t-ittar 'invocation'
[Sg more often t-etter-t]
t-a-wmss-t t-i-winas 'belly-strap ring'In (192), the forms for 'sitting' are problematic, since the irregular verb
'sit' appears to fluctuate (paradigm-internally and dialectally) between lexical
-rimu- and -rsymu- (§7.3.2.9). If t-i-rima is really t-i-rsyma, we should not
expect u anyway. This would not apply to the other cases in (192.a). None of
the plurals in (192) is widely attested. The plurals shown for 'sitting' and
'Bergia herb' were recorded for Ansongo-Gourma. The stem for 'turban' has
medial i in T-md, but not in other dialects.
The full V's (aou) in nonfinal syllables of the Sg correspond to PI u due
to the Η part of the