3.1 Segments 37but feminine t-a-baembaera-t-t 'Bambara woman' (or 'Bambara language').
The Default Accentuation rule normally depends only on the vowels,
producing an antepenultimate accent on multisyllabic words lacking a lexical
accent on the final or the penult. The addition of suffixes consisting entirely of
C's should not change the accent, but the 'Bambara' examples above show that
FeSg -t does force the shift of a default antepenultimate accent onto the penult.
For fuller discussion of this and other suffixes and clitics with similar
accentual effects, see §3.3.1.1.
There are a few noun stems that appear to preserve an original final vowel
before FeSg -t (actually -t-t with additional inner Fe suffix), but not in the
unsuffixed masculine singular. For 'gazelle' we have male e-daem versus
female t-e-daemi-t-t. For 'noble (freeborn)' we have male e-laell and female
t-e-laelli-t-t, cf. verb -sllullae-t 'be noble' and abstractive dlbllu 'nobility,
freeborn state'. See §4.1.2.4 for fuller data.
A number of V-final noun stems have a MaPl suffix -an with full vowel,
instead of the usual MaPl suffix -aen. In some cases the full V is due to ablaut
(/-aen/ plus χ), but in other cases it is due to contraction with a stem-final V
(/V-aen/—»-an, see (39)). Examples of the contraction type are a-kassa 'fresh
vegetation', PI i-kaes-αη ; and e-kaesi 'speckled one', PI i-kaes-αη. The accent
shift in the first example, from prefix (in the singular) to the surface penult (in
the plural), reinforces the view that these cases of surface -an suffix result (at
least historically) from contraction of a stem-final V with /-aen/. If Default
Accentuation applies to /i-kaesa-aen/ prior to VV-contraction (39), the accent is
on the underlying antepenult as expected, though after contraction this ends up
as the surface penult. See §4.1.2.13 for more data and analysis.
Another set of nouns, including one important verbal noun pattern, have an
apparent PI ending -awaen that I interpret as a stem-final α (missing from the
singular) plus an epenthetic stem-extension w- plus MaPl suffix -aen. Example:
eff 'shelter', PI effaw-aen.
A somewhat more complex case of stem-final V alternating with zero is
discussed in the next section.
3.1.2.4 Stem-Final i/A-Deletion (in verbs)
A number of verbs have stem-alternations involving full V's, short V's, and
zero. These are the only unaugmented V-final verbs. For example, 'vomit' has
a PerfP -absa-, with 3FePl subject absas-naet 'they-Fe vomited'; I take its basic
lexical form to be -vbsu-. The Shlmpf is -zebs (e.g. Sg Imprt aebs 'vomit!')
without the final V. The Shlmpf combines with 3FePl subject suffix -naet as
absa-naet, with a stem-final a that also induces an assimilatory (i.e. harmonic)
change of stem-initial /ae/ to a. It also combines with 3MaPl subject suffix -aen
to give sbsa-n. I take the basic (lexical) form of the Shlmpf to be /-aebsi-/,
ending in an underspecified high V "i" that is deleted without trace word-
finally (i.e. where no subject suffix appears). The hi contracts with the /ae/ of a