A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

382 7 Verbal morphology

(i or u) in the following syllable, e.g. -aebbuffas-t 'be abundant' versus T-ka
-abbuffas-t (§7.3.1.16). So, we can analyse T-ka -aCuC- as respecting
perfective melody (or even ), and other dialects' -aeCuC- as
respecting perfective , provided we specify that the full high V in this
position is immune to modification by an L melody.
To account for the imperfectives, where e.g. -vCuC- becomes -üCaC-, we
need a somewhat ad hoc ablaut process, whereby α is introduced into the
medial vowel slot, and the lexical u or i appears in stem-initial position. The
long imperfectives have prefix -t-. The VblN is generally a feminine nominal
based on either the perfective -a(C)Ci/uC- or the imperfective -Vü(C)CaC-.
At least for the -vCuC- verbs (with u rather than i, and with no CC
cluster), a further peculiarity must be mentioned. This is that the "perfective"
pattern, e.g. T-ka -aCuC-, can spill into the imperfectives (and VblN) to
constitute variants of the regular pattern -ÜCaC-.
The verbs with basic shape -v(C)Ci/uC- are illustrated in (380).

(380) Perfective -v(C)CuC-, Imperfective -ü(C)CaC-

'swell'

-vkuf-

'be scratched'

-vkmus-

a. perfective system

PerfP -akuf-

Reslt -akuf-

PerfN -akuf-

-akmus-

-akmus-

-akmus-

b. short imperfective system

Shlmpf -ükaf-, -akuf-

Imprt ükaf, akuf

-ükmas-

ükmas

c. long imperfective system

LoImpfP -t-ükaf-, -t-lkuf-

LoImpfN -t-ükaf-, -t-akuf-

Prohib -t-ükaf-, -t-akuf-

-t-ukmas-

-t-ükmas-

-t-ükmas-

d. nominalization

VblN t-ukaf-t, t-3-kuf-t ukmas

Others like 'swell' in the -vCuC- type (cited in the PerfP) are -adur-

'watch for', -adum- 'drain', -adub- 'drip', -akun- 'be amazed', -amud- 'pray',

-amum- 'be sucked', -atub- 'submit to God', -azum- 'fast (abstain)', and

-azun- 'share'. Not all of these are attested in my data in the full set of stem

variants shown in (380). As noted above, several dialects have initial as

wherever T-ka has initial a. The VblN's for the stems listed are variable in

form: t-udaq-q, eddam or udam, t-udab-t or t-a-dub-t, t-a-kuf-t, t-a-kun-t,