jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
#1
Chapter 2
Overview
A sketch of major highlights of Tamashek grammar here will provide an
overall summary of the morphosyntactic type of the language. This should
help non-Berberist readers to make sense of phrasal and clausal examples in
the main chapters. Scanning the text in Chapter 16 in conjunction with this
sketch is also recommended.
2.1 Recurrent morphosyntactic patterns
Abstracting from the complexities of the grammar, the central morphosyntactic
construction in Tamashek can be represented as (7).
(7) [X Y'...]
where X is a phrase- or clause-initial element (word or particle), Y' is an
immediately following word, and Y' is a modification in the form of the
corresponding independent form Y. "Immediately following" means that no
word or fixed-order particle intervenes, though floating clitics that happen to
attach to X are allowed. I refer to the relation between X and Y' as a local
dependency. The relevant constructions are in (8), where "verb" refers to
inflected (=finite) verbs, and "participle" (used in subject relatives) is a special
form of a verb stem with subject number-gender agreement only.
(8) [X Y'...] Local Dependencies (Requiring Adjacency)
X Y' modification in Y'
a. preposition
verb
compound initial
noun
noun (subject)
noun
Prefix Reduction
Prefix Reduction
Prefix Reduction
b. Negative particle verb ablaut change
c. definite demonstrative
definite demonstrative
verb
participle
ablaut change
ablaut change
In (8.a), a morphophonological rule Prefix Reduction (e.g. -a- reduced to
-as-, or -i- reduced to -a-) applies to nouns in combinations with specific
preceding forms. Of special interest is the fact that reduction applies to the
