2.12 Ablaut 21
Accentuation. In other words, to justify a lexical accent it is necessary to
observe accent on the final or on the penult in a word, or in an accentual phrase
(e.g. with preceding preposition), where Default Accentuation would have put
the accent farther to the left.
Using χ to represent a vowel, χ indicates a marked (non-default) accent,
either lexical (nouns), due to Resyllabification (verbs), or ablaut-induced
(verbs), χ and χ indicate default accents, χ is an accent directly produced by
Default Accentuation with no morphological complications, while χ is a
special accent (on the penult, never the antepenult) whose position is affected
by morphology, specifically by the presence of one of a specific set of suffixes
and clitics. There is no phonetic difference between x, x, and x.
2.11 Representation of stems
For nouns (and other non-verb stems), what you see is what you get. The Sg
form of the noun is the citation form. Most Sg nouns (masculine or feminine)
have a vocalic prefix, such as Sg -a- or -as-, preceding the noun stem. A
masculine example is α-basqkor 'old well'. Feminine nouns also normally
have a Fe prefix t-, and often FeSg suffix -t. An example is t-a-bsqqan-t
'burrgrass'. The χ accent indicates that penultimate accent is predictable from
the presence of suffix -t, which does not permit the usual antepenultimate
default accent.
For verbs, the true citation form makes use of "v" for short vowel, "υ" for
full vowel, and where appropriate more specific full vowels (usually u and i).
If the verb takes Augment -t-, the formula "(+ -t)" is added. The PerfP or Imprt
may be used as an informal citation form in some contexts (the PerfP is used as
the headword in the dictionary). Examples of the true citation form are -vwvt-
'hit' (PerfP -awaet-), -usvl- 'run' (PeriP -osael-), and -buffu- (+ -t) '(grain) be
abundant' (PerfP -abbuffae-t).
Verb classes (as opposed to individual stems) are represented as e.g.
-vCvC-, -vPPvC-, and -vPQvC-. Ρ and Q represent consonants, with PP a
geminate cluster and PQ a nongeminate cluster. In other words, Ρ and Q are
indexes of identity among C's. The same class may be represented as e.g.
-vCvC- or -vPvC- depending on context. For example, it may be stated that
-vPvC- has a LoImpfP stem -aPPdC-, using Ρ in -vPvC- in order to clarify the
source of the geminate in -aPPdC-.
2.12 Ablaut
Ablaut (i.e. a procedure for audibly modifying stems) permeates Tamashek
morpho-phonology and morpho-syntax. Perhaps the major ingredient in ablaut
is a vocalic melody superimposed on the stem (whether the latter includes
fully specified vowels, as with nouns, or mostly underspecified vowels, as with
