44 3 Phonology
the respective word-families (for feminine nouns, these are seen as such in the
plurals).
(31) Assimilations with t (FeSg -t, 3rd Person Object Clitics)
word form gloss "root"a. FeSg -tt-a-baelbot-tII ο 'grain I sack' Vblbd (^1) I
t-e-sek-k 'chase' Vsj (or Vsg)
t-ae-masaeq-q 'Tamashek woman' Vmsr
t-a-wdak-k 'settling down' Vdk
b. 3FeSg object clitic -\taet
!-ddasq-\qaet 'he drove her away' Vdv
s-abdskAkaet 'make it-Fe wet!' Vbdj
For more feminine nouns see §4.1.2.3.
The "C plus k" assimilations in column 2 of (30) apply to combinations
involving a C-final stem or word followed by a 2nd person object clitic
(§10.3.1): 2MaSg -\kaey, 2FeSg -\kaem, 2MaPl Akaewajn, 2FePl Akaemaet.
Examples of the more interesting assimilations are in (32).
(32) Assimilations with k (2nd Person Object Clitics)
word form gloss "root"
2MaSg object clitic -\kaey
l-ddaeq-\qaey 'he drove you-MaSg away' Vdr
i-ss-abdaekAksey 'he made you-MaSg wet' Vbdj
No assimilation occurs when the first C is a sonorant jywrlmn),
except for positional assimilation of n, e.g. /nk/ > [rjk] (subphonemic shift).
Except for sonorants, the output value of the [±voiced] feature is
determined by the second rather than first C, so{ddjgbzz?Y}in (30) lose
their voicing before t or k.
My informant for R (Gourma zone) had two multisyllabic nouns,
phonetically similar to each other, with apparent /jt/ becoming tt instead of kk
(33).