A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

Chapter 7

Verbal morphology

This chapter focuses on inflectable verb stems that occur in "ordinary" clauses.
This excludes verb forms that are confined to relative clauses, including
participles (i.e. subject relatives), on which see §8.5, and certain inflectable
verb steins (Resit and LoImpfP) that undergo ablaut modifications in definite
relative clauses (§3.5.3, §12.1).
As noted in §2, each regular verb has the set of stems in (302).

(302) Verb Stems

a. perfective system

PerfP [perfective positive]

PerfN [perfective negative] (after Neg waer)

Resit [resultative] (positive only)

b. short imperfective system

Shlmpf [short imperfective] (after Fut or complementizer)

Imprt [imperative] (in positive only)

c. long imperfective system

LoImpfP [long imperfective positive]

LoImpfN [long imperfective negative] (after Neg waer)

Prohib [prohibitive] (after Neg waer)

These stems share a uniform set of subject prefixes and suffixes §7.4.1.

There are two exceptions. First, imperatives have an unaffixed 2Sg, and

special suffixed 2MaPl and 2FePl forms (§7.4.3). Second, certain verbs with

"adjectival" sense have a special type of perfective stem (of probable nominal

origin) that can take subject suffixes but not subject prefixes (§7.4.2).

The morphological relationships among the stem types in (302) vary

depending on the type of verb, which is primarily determined by the basic

syllable shape of the stem, distinguishing short from full V's and in some

positions distinguishing geminate consonant clusters, represented as "PP," and

nongeminate clusters, represented as "PQ." Where indexation is not needed I

use "C" for consonants, hence "CC" for clusters that may be geminate or non-

geminate. In abstract representations of stems, "v" is a short vowel, "υ" is a

full vowel, and "V" can be either short or full. It is not necessary to mark

accents in these abstract lexical representations, since inflectable verb stems