A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

454 8 Verbal derivation

Shlmpf) -andu- 'be churned' and its causative -s-undu- 'churn' (PerfP
-ass-unda-, etc., see (467), below) shows that a second-syllable high V in the
input can be transposed to the preceding syllable in the causative. But if 'be
churned' is analysed as having basic form -undu- to begin with, becoming
-vndu- by u-Spreading and Medial V-Shortening (before a CC cluster), cf.
§7.3.1.4, no leftward movement of the features of u would be involved, so the
comparison with causatives in (458), above, would not be instructive.
For the record, the full set of stem forms for 'suck', the causative of 'be
sucked' (458.b), is given in (461).

(461) Causative Inflection for -umom- 'be sucked'

a. perfective system

PerfP -sess-omaem-

Reslt -aess-omaem-

PerfN -aess-omasm-

b. short imperfective system

ShlmpfP -s-iimsm-

Imprt s-ümam

c. long imperfective system

LoImpfP -s-imum-

LoImpfN -s-lmum-

Prohib -s-lmum-

d. nominalizations

VblN a-s-iimam, a-s-umam

8.1.6 Causative stem shapes (inputs with stem-final V)

We now turn to V-final stems, beginning with those of the α/ι subclass, with
PerfP shape -aPQa-. As indicated in §7.3.1.3, underived verbs of this type
have a complex phonology. The Shlmpf is /-aePQi-/ with a deletable high V
that affects accentuation and contracts with suffix-initial /ae/ to produce a.
When III is deleted word-finally (29), a resulting final PQ cluster requires
resyllabification (§3.2.4, §3.3.2) if Q is more sonorous than P. These
phonological alternations are carried over into prefixal derivatives, including
causatives. In (462) I show both resyllabifying and stable types and give
underlying schemas for the stems that have lost (word-finally and in most
suffixal combinations) the stem-final V. The paradigms are valid for T-ka;
dialectal variants are described below.