A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

466 8 Verbal derivation

arrested', which is morphologically the passive of -vrmvs- 'receive, take'. The

causative is therefore -s-vt-vrmvs- 'cause (sb) to be arrested' (PerfP

-aes-t-aermass-, etc.).

An unusual causative VblN α-z-ann-at-almaz 'act of swallowing and

spitting up saliva', recorded for Gao, is of the type -z-vn-vt-vlmvz, based on

-vlmvz- 'swallow' (intr or tr), preceded in succession by Passive -t-,

Reciprocal -η-, and Causative -z-. The combination of Reciprocal with Passive

is the irregular feature here.

8.1.10 Dialectal causative Shlmpf forms without C,-Gemination

The R speaker sometimes failed to apply CrGemination in the Shlmpf of
some combinations of Caus -s- plus derivational prefix -m-. The effect is that
the onset of the Shlmpf (including Imprt) resembles that of the LoImpfP rather
than the VblN. In (477) I show the relevant cases, giving the LoImpfP and
VblN for comparison.

(477) Ungeminated Causative Shlmpf Forms

dialect Imprt LoImpfP

a. 'whisper'

R s-am-taktak

A-grm s-amm-ataktak

-s-lm-taktik-

b. 'compare' (-ujvr- 'surpass, be better than')

R s-am-s-ijar -s-lm-s-ijir-

T-ka s-amm-as-ijar "

A-grm s-amm-as-igar -s-im-as-igir

VblN

a-samm-ataktak

II

a-s-amm-as-ljar

a-s-amm-as-igar

This ungeminated pattern seems to be sporadic for the R speaker, who did

in fact apply CrGemination to the nasal prefix in short imperfectives

(including Imprt) of the triple prefix type Caus-Recip-Caus- (-s- plus -m/-n-

plus -s-), e.g. Imprt s-ann-as-udab 'pour back and forth' and Imprt

s-amm-as-ural 'restart'.

8.2 Passive (-t-, -tt-, -tvw-)

The passive derivation is not very common. As explained in §8.2.1, many

underived intransitive verbs have senses corresponding to passives in English

(the transitive counterpart is then expressed by a causative). Other verbs can be

used, without affixal derivation, interchangeably as transitive or intransitive.

Transitives with impersonal 3MaPl subject ('they bit me') can also be used to