A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

12.3 Interrogatives 655

For ma i-ja meaning 'where is he?', see §12.3.3, above.

12.3.6 'when?' (mandajü, harammen, ammed)

'When?' is mandaju for T-ka. A variant manjadu occurs in some

Imeddedeghan dialects. Perhaps the source is interrogative *man- (cf. §12.3.9)

plus a form of a-jud 'time, moment' (cf. conjunction ajüd 'if/when...').

As with other focalized spatiotemporal adverbials, the 'when?'

interrogative requires cliticized Comit -\d, except that the preposition is

usually omitted when a clitic occurs after the interrogative.

(771) a. mandajüAd i-mmu-t [T-ka]

manjadüAd 0-aemmu-t [R]

when?-\Comit 3MaSgS-die-Aug

'When did he die?'

b. mandajuAKi i-nhaey

when?-\lSgO 3MaSgS-see.PerfP

'When did he see me?'

An alternative 'when?' word was recorded variously as har ammen

(T-md), har amine (A-grm), hasramme (K), or ar amme (R). It contains har

(variant ar) 'until' (§13.1.1.5), at least in frozen form. For Im dialect I

recorded just ammad. In all dialects it functions as a unit for purposes of

hosting clitics.

(772) [har ammen]-\ad 0-mdlae-d

[until when?]-\Centrip 2S-come.LoImpfP-2SgS

'When are you-Sg coming?' [T-md]

12.3.7 'why?' (maAfael, maAs)

maAfasl is the most common expression for 'why?'. It is simply a special case
of ma 'what?' along with the cliticized 'on' preposition fael, in other words 'on
what?' (for 'because' forms including fael, see §13.2.2, below). In isolation it
is accented as maAfael. Another such combination, mdAs, has a cliticized
Instrumental preposition As. This maAs is most often used in its natural sense
'with (=by means of) what?'. However, ma As is sometimes used as an
alternative to maAfasl in the sense 'why?' in contexts where an instrumental
reading is unlikely. With a verb like 'kill' or 'cut' that favors instrumental
readings, informants used maAs in the instrumental sense and rejected (on
grounds of ambiguity) the causal reading.