A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

672 13 Clausal subordination

The danger of confusing Future ad with the unmarked Dem ά of a relative

clause is especially great in this construction. When a clitic follows, Fut ad

reduces to ä- (§9.6.3), and Dem ά omits the following Comit -\d. If there is no

clitic, Fut ad is unreduced and Dem ά is followed by Comit -\d. One

diagnostic for Fut ad is a following Shlmpf verb, but the purposive too has a

Shlmpf verb.

However, the α in (806.a-c) before the clitic is clearly the Dem morpheme,

and phonetic [ad] in (806.d) is Dem a plus Comit -\d, not Future ad. The

Future morpheme would have been replaced by its non-clause-initial

counterparts (T-ka mar, R and K-d e) in this position. Furthermore, when the

purposive clause is negative there is no possibility of a future (mis-)reading

(807).

(807) i-jraew-tadd azraf

3MaSgS-find.PerfP-\Centrip money

[y a-\d waer t-amatte-r]

[Dat DemAComit Neg LoImpf-die.LoImpfN-lSgS]

'He got (and brought) money, in order that I not die.'

Here Neg waer follows the a-\d complex; contrast this with u-mar (the

fused combination of Neg and Fut in this dialect). The verb 'die' is in the

LoImpfN form.

Either the y or the a-\d is occasionally omitted in textual examples.

(929) in the text (Chapter 16) has a clause that is purposive in function but that

omits y. The resulting construction with a-\d is identical to a jussive-

subjunctive clause (§13.3). In (808), the first Dative y introduces a purposive

clause without a-\d. This clause itself contains a dative NP argument in

purposive function ('for something ...'). For the 'something to eat'

construction see §12.1.3.

(808) ad aekk-aer ras t-a-yäedduf-t

Fut go.to.Shlmpf-lSgS only Fe-Sg-termite.mound-FeSg

[y aevs-aeq-\qaet-\9dd

[Dat dig.ShImpf-lSgS-\3FeSgO-\Centrip

[y [a aksae-n ara-taen]]]

[Dat Dem eat.Reslt-3MaPlS child-MaPl]]

Ί will go only to the termite mound, to dig it up and bring it, for (=to

get) something for the children to eat.'

In addition to this full purposive-clause structure, it is also possible for a

simple dative VblN to be added as an adjunct to a main clause (809).

(809) ose-vAidd [e 't-ae-taete]

arrive.PerfP-lSgSACentrip [Dat Fe-Sg-eat.VblN]

Ί came in order to eat.'