A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

4.1 Noun morphology 191

The clear cases of ablaut derivation are those that audibly show the regular
PI ablaut melody , i.e., with high vowels {u a i) in the stem syllables
preceding the suffixal -an (which expresses the L component of the melody).
"Audibly" in the above formulation presupposes that the Η component of the
melody has actually changed a mid-height or low V in the Sg; if the Sg already
has high V's in the relevant syllables, the application of a PI melody may be
unprovable.
By contrast, -an derived by VV-Contraction (39) should have no effect on
the preceding syllables of the stem. However, identifying contraction cases is
made difficult by the fact that the original stem-final *V has disappeared in
many cases even from the unsuffixed Sg form.
I begin with the clearest cases of -an derived by VV-Contraction (39.a),
namely, those where a stem-final V is indeed audible in the Sg, and where no
ablaut change occurs in the stem going from Sg to PI (169).

(169) MaPl -an Due to Contraction of/-aen/ with Stem-Final Vowel

singular plural gloss

a. Sg and PI have penultimate accent

e-daehi i-daeh-αη 'sand'

e-haeri [A-grm] i-haer-αη [A-grm] 'young bull'

[elsewhere Sg e-haere, PH-hsYW-an]

e-kaesi i-kaes-αη (A-grm) 'speckled one'

e-saeli i-sael-αη 'news'

[PI in all dialects; Sg used in A-grm but not in T-ka]

e-taeri i-taer-αη 'inherited trait'

azzami azzam-an (A-grm) 'strip of hide' (Vzmy)

b. Sg has default antepenultimate accent, PI has shifted penultimate

accent

ά-raeba i-raeb-an (A-grm) 'bridle'

a-kaesa i-kaes-an 'fresh vegetation'

a-lasda i-laed-an I 'fly (insect)'

a-waera i-wasr-an 'baby camel'

ae-bada i-bdd-an (A-grm) 'bosom'

[Sg also ά-baeda (T-ka)]

3-biwa i-biw-an 'animal pen'

εε-Yora i-vor-an 'call to prayer'

ae-rata i-rat-an 'crocodile'

[PI alsol-vuta (T-ka)]

ae-hara i-har-an 'saltlick'

ae-jola i-jol-an 'step-son'

ae-koka i-kok-an 'doum-palm nut'

ae-loba i-lob-an 'arc-ed pole'