A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

522 8 Verbal derivation

These are the same stems that syncopate after Stem-Initial V-Insertion in the
perfective and (in most cases) in inflectable Shlmpf stems.
The VblN's for -CvCvC- stems in (553.a) are somewhat problematic. In
principle, they are of the same type as those in (353.b-c), using the ablaut
components in (551). However, when Ρ is a BLC, the VblN type a-CaPaC is
phonetically indistinguishable from the a-PaeQaC VblN pattern for light
-vPQvC- stems (§8.6.1.2), and there are some indications that this phonetic
overlap has resulted in morphological reanalysis of a-CaPaC as a-CaePaC
with as instead of a. The test for this, in T-ka, is Prefix Reduction, which
converts α to as or to 9 depending on whether the following syllable has a high
or low V. In cases like a-baeraj, I have heard [x aebas'rad^] more often than [x
abas'radj], where χ is a Prefix Reduction trigger such as a preposition. Word-
final /aw/ is heard as [u], and word-final /ay/ is heard as [i]. The plurals, in
...iw-asn and ...iy-asn, confirm the /aw/ and /ay/ representations. However, the
Sg form behaves variably as C-final (e.g. ...aw-) or as V-final (e.g. ...u-) with
respect to suffixation. The relevant suffixes are pronominal possessor suffixes,
and with the lSg suffix (postvocalic -nin, postconsonantal -in, in both cases
requiring word-penultimate accent), we get both variants: α-mlawlaw-in =
α-mlawlü-nin 'my shining'. This fluctuation does not apply to the α-variant
(...aw, ...ay), which is clearly C-final.

If the stem has a full V, it appears as u or i in the VblN, depending on the
lexical item, u is much more common than i, though i is used before a w. In
addition, only u occurs before a CC cluster, i.e. in a closed syllable. The
examples involve nonfinal syllables, which may be open or closed, and the u
shows up also in the inflected forms, so it can be attributed to the basic lexical
form of the stem. There are a few cases with i instead of u, always in open
syllables, and i appears to be the only possible full V when immediately
followed by w (§7.3.1.7). When the V is u, we get u-Spreading and (if
relevant) Medial-V Shortening (§3.4.9.3) in the PI of the simple VblN,
though not in the PI of the VblN with α in the final syllable, except in A-grm
dialect. Examples are in (554).

(554) Verbal Nouns of Heavy C-final Verbs with Medial Full Vowel

gloss Imprt Sg VblN PI VblN

a. medial u, nonsyncopating

'be rude' budar a-budar

a-budar

'be obligatory' hussal a-hussal

a-hussal

i-budur-aen

i-büdar-sen

i-hassul-aen

i-hüssal-aen

b. medial u, syncopating

'gape' balular a-blular i-blulur-aen

a-blulasT i-blulasv-asn