A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

8. 7 Adjectival nouns without derivational prefix 537

b. 'old (person)'

Ma ά-imrar l-mrar-aen

Fe t-a-mrar-t t-l-mrar-en

The set of adjectival nouns known to me is in (568), showing the PerfP
and Imprt of the verb alongside the adjectival noun in MaSg form. The
adjectival noun seems to be more closely associated morphologically with the
perfectives than with the imperfectives in those cases where the two inflectable
stems diverge formally. Adjectival nouns are effectively limited to verbs with
heavy perfective stems, e.g. -Cv(C)CVC-. The exception is 'be yellow' with
PerfP -aerar-, but this appears to be shortened from /-waerar-/ (which occurs
as such in K-d), to judge from e.g. ImprtIwrar (§7.3.2.4).

Verbs with light perfective stems do not have adjectival nouns of the sort
described in this section, but may have nominals taking the form of agentives
(§8.8, below) that function like adjectival nouns.

(568) Adjectival Nouns

gloss PerfP Imprt adj noun

a-CCaC

'grey' baehaw- Ibhaw ά-bhaw

'dark brown' baenaw- bsenaew a-bnaw

'yellow-brown' baezaw- baezaew a-bzaw

'dark grey' haeras- haeraes a-hras

'old' (Vmrr) maeqqor- Imvar a-imrar

[PerfP also -maeqqEer-]

'deaf mazzaj- Imzaj a-mzaj

'red' (Vswr) saeggar- Iswar ά-zwav

'yellow' (Vwrr) -aerar- Iwrar a-wrar (§7.3.2.4)

b. a-CaCCaC

'blunted'

'white'

'small-eared' karraw-

'off-white' samlal-

'blind' daerral-

'blackish' raendaw-

'cloudy (liquid) ssewsaw-

'old' wsessar-

-addamdaem- daemdaem a-damdam

mallal- "imlal a-mallal

[PerfP also maellael-]

karraw a-karraw

saemlael a-samlal

daenraelI I a-daerral

[noun arguably a-danral]

rsendasw a-randaw

ssewsaew a-sawsaw

Iwsar a-wassar