A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

7.3 Verb classes and irregular verbs 399

in the perfective. The subtype '(skin) dry' is therefore the "productive" pattern

among this smallish set of verbs.

All three verbs in (395) have medial ο in the perfectives. As indicated in

the parallel PerfP -sedobaen- 'marry' (§7.3.1.7), we seem to have a stem-wide

<L> melody here, with L combining with lexical u to give mid-height ο by

V-Height Compromise (§3.5.7).

The <L H> short imperfective melody for 'move out' (395), though valid

for only two of the verbs covered here, resembles the regular <L H> short

imperfective melody in other non-augment V-final verbs, including light

V-final verbs of the α/ι subclass (§7.3.1.3), heavy V-final verbs (§7.3.1.5), and

-u(C)Cu- verbs (§7.3.1.15).

In (396) I present parallel cases involving e instead of ο in the perfectives.

The basic form is -CiCu- with medial i. I know of no cases with

C,-Gemination. The two verbs in (396) have identical stem paradigms, except

for the variant short imperfectives for 'be balanced'.

(396) -CiCu- Stems with Medial e in Perfectives

'be in agony' 'be balanced'

-nisu- -misu-

a. perfective system

PerfP -senesa- -aemesa-

Reslt -aenesa- -aemesa-

PerfN -senesa- -jemesa-

b. short imperfective system

Shlmpf -aenas (/-senasi-/)

Imprt nas

c. long imperfective system

LoImpfP -t-anasa-

LoImpfN -t-snisi-

Prohib -t-senasa-

-semas (/-aemasi-/)

[variant -amis-]

mas

[variant mis]

-t-amasa-

-t-smisi-

-t-semasa-

d. nominalization

VblN a-nis a-mis

The e in the perfective is parallel to the ο of (395), and can be explained as
L plus lexical i plus V-Height Compromise. The usual short imperfective
melody is , becoming characteristic long imperfective melody.
There is a variant short imperfective melody seen with 'be balanced'. The
strong association of lexical i with imperfective melody (shifting i to a) is