A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

364 7 Verbal morphology

(367) -v(C)Cu- verbs, u/u subclass

gloss PerfP Imprt LoImpfP

a. PQ cluster

'be churned' -andu- andu

'bellow' -arku- arku

'moo, roar' -anju- anju

-niddu-

-nkku-

-nijju-

b. single C

'(dog) bark' -asu- asu

'bray' -aru- aru

, A V

-t-isu-

-t-lru-

'be ancient' [same forms as 'bray']

'cough' -asu- asu -t-isu-

c. PP cluster

'gag (vomit)' -aqqu- Iqqu -t-lqqu-

[R dialect: PerfP also -oqqa-, Imprt also aqq]

Several of the verbs denote noises or noisy bodily emissions and have an

onomotopoeic flavor ('bellow', 'moo', 'bark', 'bray', 'cough', 'gag'). Those in

(367.a) have a nongeminate PQ cluster, in all cases with Ρ more sonorous than

Q. Those in (367.b) have a single C, and the one stem in (367.c) has a

geminate. The latter stem ('gag') also occurs dialectally with an initial full V.

When stem-final u contracts with e.g. 3MaPl -asn, both underlying V's are

counted in connection with Default Accentuation, thus PerfN war asu-n 'they-

Ma barked' from /asu-aen/.

VblN's are t-a-naddaw-t, t-a-räeko-t-t, t-a-naejo-t-t, t-eqqu-t-t, t-asu-t-t,

t-a-ru-t-t ('braying' and 'being ancient'), t-a-su-t-t.

One possible analysis of α/u and u/u verbs is that the u originates as a

stem-initial V. This would mean taking e.g. PerfP -andu-, Imprt andu 'be

churned' as having a basic representation -undi> rather than e.g. -vndu-. This

might well work at least for those stems with a medial cluster. In this view, the

u-final forms are the result of u-Spreading and Medial V-Shortening

(§3.4.9.3). The best evidence for this is causative -s-undu- 'churn' (PerfP

-ass-unda-, etc.), see §8.1.6. However, this is the only causative I can cite that

is clearly connected, in form and meaning, with an underived α/u or u/u verb.

7.3.1.5 Heavy non-augment V-final -CvCCv- and -CvCvCCv-

There are also some non-augment heavy V-final verbs. The number of such
stems is low, and they are dwarfed in number by the open-ended class of heavy
augmented verbs (§7.3.1.6, below). Schematic MAN-stem paradigms are in
(368). Ρ denotes the first C, in order to make C,-Gemination transparent.