A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

7.3 Verb classes and irregular verbs 411

'Be brown' and 'be green' are adjectival, as shown by their Abstractive
nominals. Both were discussed in §7.3.1.13. The PerfP shapes dala-t and
fawa-t (variant -aeffewae-t is attested only for T-ka) are specifically adjectival,
with melody and stem-final α that fails to undergo Pre-Augment
V-Shortening.
However, 'roast' is a non-adjectival verb whose stem paradigm is parallel
to that of 'be plump' in (407), above, but with lexical i rather than u. In the
perfective, this i usually combines with L melody to produce e, hence the
widespread PerfP -aekkewae-t, though the T-ka informant also gave a variant
-aekkiwas-t. In the imperfectives, the shift to strict melody is parallel to
the same shift in -CiCvC- verbs like -jiwvd- 'flee' (PerfP -aejewaed-, VblN
α-jiwad, but Imprt jawaed with melody, see §7.3.1.7).

7.3.2 Irregular and suppletive verbs

The verbs 'see' (Vnhy or Vhny) and 'weep' (Vlh or Vhl) are treated as cases of
metathesis (§3.2.2.1). The verbs considered below have irregular or at least
unique paradigms.

7.3.2.1 'die' (Vmt, Vm, Vmtn)

(409) 'die'

a. perfective system (based on Vm)

PerfP -ammu-t

Resit -ammu-t

PerfN -smmu-t

b. short imperfective system (based on Vmt)

Shlmpf -aemmast-

Imprt semmast (2MaPl asmmaet-aet, 2FePl aemmaet-mast)

c. long imperfective system (based on Vmt)

LoImpfP -t-amaetta-t

LoImpfN -t-amatti-t

Prohib -t-semaetta-t

d. nominalization (based on Vmtn)

VblN t-a-meettan-t ('death')

Agent e-n-aemmettan, e-n-ammetan ('ΰΟφεε')

The major irregularity is that the t at the end of the perfective and long
imperfective forms is the Augment -t- (and is therefore omitted before