jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
#1
164 4 Nominal and pronominal morphology
common when the following syllable has short se, especially in e-CaeCC and
e-CaeCaeC.
ae- prefix: £e-la 'leaf', ae-lablab 'turban', se-lata 'midriff, se-koka 'palm-
nut segment', t-ae-kaeraket-t. A common pattern is ae- before stems beginning
in Ca....
3- prefix: verbal noun a-m-ukan 'making, doing', a-liswad 'tree twig',
a-jidrass 'hail'. In T-ka, a- and ae- are distributed based on the basis of Short-V
Harmony, i.e. with a- if the following syllable has a high V.
The full-V prefixes (Sg a- and e-, PI i-) are subject to Prefix Reduction in
the dependent state, i.e. in postverbal subject and prepositional complement
functions (§3.5.1), as shown on the right in (141). The symbol^1 before a noun
is an index of audible Prefix Reduction; I do not use this symbol when the
noun has an invariable short vocalic prefix -X-/-3-, so there is no audible
change under Prefix Reduction. For FePl t-i-, T-ka has an invariant reduced
form "t-a- with audible schwa, while many other dialects (including T-md and
K-d) have "t-a- before a consonant cluster and "'t-0- before a single C (the t- is
not subject to Prefixal t-Deletion, §3.2.1.5). In other words, these dialects
allow Syncope of the schwa when the syllabic conditions are right (§3.2.7.1).
The Sg/Pl prefixal alternations shown in (141) are valid for all types of
plural, including unsuffixed ablaut plurals.
A very few nouns (mostly loanwords) have an unprefixed masculine and a
prefixed feminine; in this case the Fe prefix t- is accompanied by a vocalic
prefix -a- or -ae- that was perhaps originally epenthetic, but functions now as a
genuine vocalic prefix and is therefore replaced by -i- in the PI. Examples of
this last type are: busu 'Capparis shrub' (PI busu-taen) and feminine variant
t-a-busu-t-t (PI t-i-busu-t-en); likewise föti 'tankard' (A-grm, PI föti-taen) and
feminine variant t-ae-foti-t-t (PI t-i-foti-t-en).
Not all nouns have a vocalic prefix, even if they begin with a consonant
and could therefore take a vocalic prefix with no phonological problems. Many
of these consonant-initial nouns are borrowings (from Arabic, Songhay, or
other languages). Examples are deje 'Grewia tree', deke 'basket', and
dukadda 'bird sp.'. There are also some nominal derivatives that lack a vocalic
prefix: rsekkon 'halting' (VblN), s-sento 'beginning'.
There are also many nouns that begin with an invariant stem-initial
vowel that cannot be segmented as a prefix. If the noun is feminine, Fe prefix
t- directly precedes the invariant stem-initial vowel. When the vowel is from
the set {i ο u} there is no danger of misinterpreting it as a vocalic prefix.
Examples: t-orasf-t 'boat', and VblN's like udaf 'holding' and t-lbra 'grabbing
a handful'.
When the stem-initial vowel is from the set {a ae e a}, we must test for
possible prefixal status (see next paragraph). Examples of nouns whose vowel
is invariant and must therefore be assigned to the stem are aelbaSnna 'mason'
(<Arabic), addinast (variant aeddinast 'people'; <Arabic), allbunas
'Pterocarpus tree', and adu 'wind' (PI adu-taen). Most stems with initial e in
the singular shift e to α in the plural, see §4.1.2.7. However, the e is not
