A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

240 4 Nominal and pronominal morphology

Proximal demonstrative 'this' (near speaker) requires addition of suffix
-hi (w-a-hi etc.)· A Near-Distant demonstrative (e.g. near addressee or a short
distance from speaker and addressee) is expressed by the series ending in -di.
(For the R dialect I recorded wae-di etc. with ae instead of a.) This can also be
used anaphorically to denote something not physically visible or otherwise
present. While MaPl w-i-di and FePl t-i-di are clearly tri-morphemic, MaSg
wa-di and FeSg ta-di are more ambiguous; one could take the schwa as part of
the gender marker, as epenthetic, or as an irregular reduction of the -a- seen in
the unmarked and proximal demonstratives. A specifically Distant
demonstrative is expressed by -en, which contracts with the preceding V (Sg
-en from /-d-en/, PI -1-n from /-1-en/). The normally Proximal suffix -hi can be
added to -di or -en, but these combinations are uncommon.
The w- of Ma[sculine] forms supports Prasse's view that the MaSg
nominal prefixes α-, e-, and ss- on nouns were originally w-a- and w-ae-.
The most common way to indicate anaphoric (=discourse-deictic) status
(e.g. 'this/that same one we were talking about') is by adding Anaphoric
suffix -daer to the demonstrative, often (but not always) the unmarked
demonstrative: w-a-daer, less often w-en-daev, etc. However, (214.a) also
shows a special Recent Anaphoric demonstrative, with ending -nnin, used to
denote something mentioned earlier, but not the currently active "topical"
referent. In context it can sometimes be glossed as 'the former', as when
discourse referents R and S have just been introduced (in that order) and the
speaker then wishes to index R. It can also be glossed 'the preceding one'. It
has a variant -ndln, which is more transparently related to and! 'before'. The
form andln is also used as a postnominal demonstrative (see below, §4.3.3).
For invariant ά in connection with focalization, see §12.2.
Another set of demonstratives is used to provide heads to indefinite
relative clauses that lack noun heads (§8.5.4, §12.1). The forms are repeated
here as (215). The form i is also used in relatives (arguably definite, though
there is no definite/indefinite distinction here) whose head is a 1st or 2nd
person pronoun (§12.1).

(215) Demonstrative Head of Indefinite Relative

MaSg = MaPl 1

FeSg = FePl t-1

The Distant Anaphoric demonstrative and Anaph

(216).

(216) azzaey-aen [daer [ae-kall

live.PerfP-3MaPlS [in [Sg-country

'They lived in that (aforementioned) land.'

-daer are illustrated in

en-dasr]]

Dist-Anaph]]