A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

316 7 Verbal morphology

searched', have no basis for a composite melody in the Shlmpf.
However, /-aeqqamA-/ 'sit' does have dialectal variants /-aeqqami-/ and
/-asqqaymi-/, hence 3MaPl Future ad 0-aeqqama-n or ad 0-asqqayma-n with
schwa instead of ae before the suffix.
Some further processes are observed in the augmented V-final verbs of
(314.f). To begin with, VV-Contraction (37) applies in the combinations with
V-initial subject suffixes, all of which have the shape /-aeC/, such as 3MaPl
-aen and 2Sg -asd. In these combinations the suffixal Augment -t- is omitted
and the stem-final V contracts with the suffixal V (317).

(317) α-ae -» e
i-ae —» i
u-ae —> u

In augment verbs with Shlmpf melody, of course the stem-final V is
/a/. In those with Shlmpf melody, the unmarked choice for the stem-final
V is /i/, hence 3MaPl Future ad ahnaffi-n 'they-Ma will groan', 2Sg Future
(causative) ad s-assajri-d 'you-Sg will lengthen'. Note the antepenultimate
default accent here (showing that this type of VV-Contraction precedes
Default Accentuation). However, if there is a medial u in the stem, the stem-
final too appears as u by a special u-Spreading rule (119). This rule precedes
another rule, Medial V-Shortening (120), that reduces the original medial full
vowel /u/ to a before a CC-cluster preceding any /-aeC/ subject suffix (i.e. in
the absence of Augment -t-).
In (318), -hvnvffo- (+ -\t) 'groan' illustrates the unmarked final i, -dvruru-
(+ -\t) 'be diluted' illustrates u-Spreading, and -furru- (+ -\t) 'fly' illustrates
u-Spreading followed by Medial V-Shortening. All of these processes are
observable in (318.b), with Augment -t- absent, while in (318.a) the Augment
forces Pre-Augment V-Shortening (§3.4.9.2). This merges {u i} into a, so we
cannot determine whether u-Spreading has applied in (318.a). Clearly,
however, Medial V-Shortening has not applied to the augmented forms of 'fly'
in (318.a) as it has in the unaugmented forms in (318.b).

(318) Shlmpf Paradigm of three verbs

subject 'groan' 'be diluted' 'fly'

a. Augment -t- present

3MaSg

3FeSg

3FePl

2FePl

1P1

1-hnaffa-t

t-ahnaffa-t

ahnaffa-t-naet

ahnaffa-t-maet

n-ahnaffa-t

l-drura-t ι

t-adrura-t ι

adrüra-t-naet ι

adrüra-t-maet ι

n-adrura-t

1-ffurra-t

t-affurra-t

affurra-t-nast

t-affurra-t-maet

n-affurra-t