A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

7.3 Verb classes and irregular verbs 393

The verbs in (390) have lexical medial geminates and therefore arguably
have only three distinct C's. They too behave like -CvCCvC- verbs in the
imperfective, and (in variant forms) sometimes in the perfective. This behavior
contrasts with the verbs covered in the preceding section, where the geminated
CC occurred only in the perfective.

(390) Adjectival Verbs with -CvPPvC- PerfP

gloss PerfP Imprt LoImpfP

a. 'be deaf mazzaj- maezzaej -t-amaezzaj-

[PerfP also -ammazzaej-, Imprt also Im^aj]

b. 'be weak' laqqaw- laeqqaew -t-alaeqqaw-

[PerfP also -albqqasw-]

Abstractives: t-aemmaezzaek-k or t-ammazzak-k, t-aellaeqqaew-t or

t-allaqqaew-t.

There are also some adjectival verbs with just three C's that follow the

basic pattern in (389). That is, although their phonological structure is

compatible with a theoretical -iCCaC- as the basis for imperfective stems, they

in fact have imperfectives of the same type seen with non-adjectival -CvCvC-

stems (§7.3.1.2). They differ from these non-adjectival stems in having a

clearly "adjectival" PerfP CaeCaC-, not allowing pronominal subject prefixes.

In two cases, a variant LoImpfP based on -iCCaC- is attested, and further

dialectological work would probably dig up other similar examples. Data are

in (391).

(391) Adjectival -CvCvC- Verbs with PerfP PaeCaC-

PerfP Imprt

a. 'be brown' baenaw- baenaew

[PerfP also -abbanaew-]

b. 'be brown' baezaw-

c. 'be grey' daebar-

'be sloppy' haeray-

baezaew

daebaer

haeraey

Ihray

LoImpfP

-t-abaenaw-

-t-abaszaw-

-t-lbzaw-t

-t-adaebar-

-t-ahaeray-

-t-lhray-

The Abstractive nominals are t-asbbae nnasw-t, t-aebbaszasw-t,

t-aeddaebaer-t, and t-aehhaeraey-t, all typical adjectival Abstractive forms.