A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

706 14 Coordination

In disjunctions ('or'), left and right agreement is confined to the nearest

coordinand (884).

(884) a. 0-okaey "ae-wdes

3MaSgS-pass.PerfP Sg-bull

Ά bull or a cow passed by.'

b. t-okaey t-aess

3FeSgS-pass.PerfP Fe-cow

Ά cow or a bull passed by.'

mer

or

mer

or

t-aess

Fe-cow

ά-wdes

Sg-bull

c. [ά-wdes mer t-aess] maell-aet

[Sg-bull or Fe-cow] white-Partpl.FeSg

'a white [bull or cow]' (i.e. 'a white bull or a white cow')

(indistinguishable from 'a bull or a white cow')

In (884.c), the relevant reading is one where 'white' takes scope over both
nouns. However, the same sequence can also have the narrow-scope reading
with 'white' confined to 'cow'. Of course the narrow-scope version could be
unambiguously expressed by reversing the order of the two conjuncts, and
having 'cow' bring its participle with it into left coordinand position ("[cow
white] with bull").

14.2 Clausal coordination

14.2.1 Clausal'and'

There is no clausal 'and' conjunction. Two parallel clauses are often uttered
together without a break in a manner indicating that they function
pragmatically as a higher unit, but in most cases both clauses have main-clause
form and there is no explicit syntactic marker of conjunction.
In certain constructions, a second clause has slightly reduced or restricted
MAN marking vis-ä-vis the first clause. These "add-on" clauses are described
in §13.4, where I also give examples of juxtaposed parallel clauses.