A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

384 7 Verbal morphology

rude', -annid- (innad) 'be sick', and -alsin- 'be crazy' (<Arabic). For K-d I
can add -sesriw- 'be happy'. The VblN's are t:ICCaC-t except for t-orhanna
(arguably t-ürhanna) 'sickness', t-e-naede 'fever', and ά-lsin 'craziness'. For
both -vCiC- and -vCCiC- types, dialects other than T-ka (and A-grm) have
initial ae in the perfective corresponding to a in T-ka.
In the remainder of this section I describe the small number of
semantically non-adjectival verbs that have an «i α» imperfective melody like
that in (381), but have a medial V other than i or u in the perfective. The data
are in (382).

(382) Perfective -v(C)Ce/oC-, Imperfective -l(C)CaC-

'be sick' 'be softened' 'believe' 'intend'

-vrhen- -vtted- -vrel- -vbok-

[K-d]' [dialectal]

a. perfective system

PerfP -arhen- -aetted-I I I -aerel- -aebok-

Resit -arhen- -aetted-I I I -aevel- -aebok-

PerfN -arhen- -aetted-1 I I -aerel- -aebok-

b. short imperfective system

Shlmpf -Irhan- -Ittad- -ιγαΐ- -Ibak-

Imprt Irhan Ittad Ιταΐ Ibak

c. long imperfective system

LoImpfP -t-irhan- -t-ittad- -t-iral- -t-lbak-

LoImpfN -t-lrhan- -t-lttad- -t-lval- -t-ibak-

Prohib -t-lrhan- -t-~ittad-ι ι ι -t-lral- -t-lbak-

d. nominalization

VblN t-orhanna t-ittan-t t-ae-ril-t t-abuk-k

All four stems in (382) have a medial mid-height V in the perfective.
Three have e, one has o. Only the first ('be sick') is recorded in my T-ka data
with the perfective shown; 'believe' occurs there but in the form -aril- which
belongs to (381) rather than to (382), and 'intend' is not attested for this
dialect. All three verbs have initial i in the imperfectives; the back rounded ο
in 'intend' is not enough to force initial u.
For 'be sick', the perfective melody is in T-ka, T-md, and A-grm,
the Η being apparent in the initial a. Other dialects have PerfP -aerhen-, with
stem-wide melody. The dialectal PerfP-aevel- of 'believe', and the
dialectally attested 'intend' verb shown, also show perfective melody. All
dialects have «i α» vocalic sequence in the imperfectives.