A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

372 7 Verbal morphology

contrast to some other verb shapes to be discussed below, with -CvCuCvC-

stems the medial high V is stripped of its lexical vowel-quality features under

perfective ablaut and becomes a pure a.

Perfectives and the inflectable Shlmpf show Stem-Initial V-Insertion, and

the stem-initial CvCu... makes these stems eligible for Stem-Initial Syncope.

Long imperfective ablaut audibly expresses all local ablaut formatives,

including both length formatives χ-pcl and χ-f. Since there is a lexical high V,

the long (as well as short) imperfective has melody. The verbs with

medial lexical u are also eligible for u-Spreading (§3.4.9.3), hence the double

u in LoImpfP -t-iblulur- in (373). Medial V-Shortening, which often co-

occurs with u-Spreading, fails to apply since the medial u is not followed by a

CC cluster. In A-grm dialect, u-Spreading does not exist, hence -t-lblulir-.

Having dealt with the superheavy verbs, I now turn to middleweight

verbs. I begin with those that have a medial CC cluster, i.e. -CuCCvC-. I

know of no such verb with medial i, but there are a number with medial u, like

-hussvl- in (374).

(374) Sample -CuCCvC- Verb

'be obligatory'

-hussvl -

a. perfective system

PerfP -ahhussael-

Reslt -ahhiissael-

PerfN -ahhussael-

[in most non-T-ka dialects, perfectives begin with ae not a]

b. short imperfective system

Shlmpf -shhussal-

Imprt hüssal

c. long imperfective system

LoImpfP -t-lhassul-

LoImpfN -t-ahassul-

Prohib -t-ahassul-

d. nominalization

VblN a-hussal

Other verbs of this set, cited in the Imprt, are bümbay 'lie face-down',

rürhas 'freeze', hüjjaj 'perform the pilgrimage to Mecca', hunnaj 'have an

eye ailment', and hünsar '(nose) bleed' (LoImpfP -t-ihansur-, etc.), among

others. For durhan 'desire', the LoImpfP is recorded as either t-idarhun- with