A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

366 7 Verbal morphology

'have a scare' -arrafta- raeft -t-araefta- a-re ft

'take care of -awwalla- waell -t-awadla- a-wall

'be disgraced' -azzalla- zsell -t-azaella- a-zall

b. superheavy

'be confused'

'be spicy'

'be fewer'

'deserve'

'resemble'

-zemtaella-

-aerrasrha-

-selksensa-

-senhaejja-

-aen-faeqqa-

matall

vararh

lakans

nahajj

n-afaqq

-t-lmtalli-

-t-nrrarhi-

-t-llkansi-

-t-lnhajji-

-t-ln-faqqi-

a-mtall

a-vrarh

a-lkans

a-nhajj

a-n-faqq

The inflected Shlmpf forms are of the types -seffaeyk 'be searched' (3MaPl
Future ad aeffseykae-n 'they will be searched'), and -amtall (3MaPl Future ad
amtalla-n 'they were confused'). Underlyingly, the Shlmpf forms have a final
/A/ for middleweight 'be searched' and a final III for superheavy 'be
confused'. The 3MaPl forms cited illustrate the contractions /A + as/ to ae, and
/i + a/ to a, respectively.
The VblN forms are compatible with those of other heavy stems, with a-
vocalic prefix in the Sg, stem-wide melody, and (underlying) penultimate
accent χ-pen.
The superheavy stems in (369.b), which begin in /CaCa.../ and are
therefore subject to Stem-Initial Syncope, have surface melody in the
perfective. As noted elsewhere, a case can be made for underlying
melody. This would directly account for the surface in Resit stems like
(T-ka) -amltaella- 'be confused', from /-amataella-/ plus the Resit ablaut
formatives χ-pcl and (in this case vacuous) χ-pcl. In this view, PerfP
-aemtaslla- is from the same /-amataslla-/, via Stem-Initial Syncope and
Leftward L-Spreading (§3.7.2). However, other dialects have Resit forms of
the type -aemltaella- with initial ae, which may require a three-part <L Η L>
melody, or a vowel-height dissimilation targeting the initial vowel.
'Harm' (369.a) is denominative from asllasrora 'harm', an Arabic loan;
several other dialects have d for T-ka 1 in this word family (Arabic δ has a
lateral articulation in some Hassaniya Arabic dialects, especially in Mauritania,
and T-ka may have borrowed directly from one such dialect). 'Be fewer' in
(369.b) also has an alternative augmented paradigm (Imprt lakansa-t, PerfP
-aelkasnsae-t).
The verb 'catch fever', cf. §7.3.1.7, has a paradigm of type (369.a)
coexisting with a different paradigm.
When the stem ends in ...VPQD- where Q is a sonorant (and PQ are a
nongeminate cluster), we get resyllabification behavior in the (unsuffixed)
short imperfectives (such as the Imprt) and in the VblN, parallel to
resyllabification in other types of verbs. I illustrate with -lvjwu- 'bend' in
(370).