A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

3.3 Accent 85

of the antepenult. It is probably best to treat this as a morphophonological fact,
simply stipulating that the suffixes and clitics in question have this effect on
word accent. I use the double grave accent ν to indicate surface accent due to
the effect of these morphemes
Alternatively, one could argue for underlying representations of the
suffixes and clitics that have one more syllable than appears on the surface.
This could take the form of a final (or initial) unspecified vowel (V) that is
present when accentuation applies but is then dropped by a late, ad hoc
morphological rule.
Another alternative would be to recognize floating accents on the left of
the morphemes in question (the accent would attach to a syllable to the left). A
floating-accent analysis would be most appropriate when the suffix or clitic is
monosyllabic (contains one vowel), and the accent ends up on the immediately
preceding syllable. This analysis is less attractive for cases (FeSg -t, 3MaSg
-\t) where the suffix or clitic is nonsyllablic (consists of just consonants), so
the accent ends up on a nonadjacent syllable farther to the left.
The morphemes in question are those in (63).

(63) Suffixes and Clitics inducing Penultimate Accent

a. FeSg -t on nouns (but not FeSg -aet in nouns or participles)

b. 3MaSg At or -\tt (object clitic)

c. certain pronominal suffixes

—lSg, 2MaSg, 2FeSg, and 3Sg possessive clitics after

alienable noun

—1P1, 2MaPl, and 3MaPl after preposition or inalienable

noun

d. Hortative -et (' let's ...!')

e. PI Imperative suffixes (2MaPl Imprt -aet, 2FePl Imprt -mast)

When one of these suffixes occurs at the end of a word, the default accent
is now penultimate instead of antepenultimate.
The clearest examples involving FeSg -t (63.a) are those with lexically
unaccented trisyllabic stems whose unsuffixed MaSg form has default
antepenultimate accent: a-baembaera 'Bambara (man)'. The FeSg of such
stems has penultimate accent t-a-baembasra-t-t 'Bambara (woman)'. This can
be considered regular default accentuation if the final -t is treated as /-tV/.
Therefore the only feminine nouns ending in -t that require lexical
specification of the accent are the very rare cases of final-syllable accent.
Feminine nouns not ending in -t may have antepenultimate accent: t-ze-fala
'makeshift hut'.
In at least one case, a masculine noun with lexical final-syllable accent has
penultimate accent in the suffixed feminine form: kaeyd 'monkey', FeSg
t-a-kseya-t-t 'female monkey'. Here we must assume that the feminine
derivation wipes out the lexical accent, so t-a-käeya-t-t gets penultimate accent