3.1 Segments 253.1.1.2 Marginal nasals (η n)
The nasals ή and η occur in a handful of stems. A clear n was recorded in
naemasku 'frog sp.' for a Goundam-area speaker, and in kumaenaega 'buprestid
beetle'. These are probable Songhay borrowings.
q occurs in seqqa 'brother', -vqqi> 'become ripe', and t-uqqa-t-t '(type of)
tree bark'. These three terms occur in Algeria and (with the possible exception
of 'tree bark') in Niger, and so are unlikely to be borrowings, so prevocalic *q
can be assumed in a few words for proto-Tuareg. For 'brother' and 'become
ripe' I have also recorded variants with n instead of η in K: aenna 'brother',
-vfinu- 'become ripe'.
There are many cases of homorganic clusters qg, qk, and ηγ, but these can
be taken as assimilations from /ng/, etc., since there are no oppositions
between e.g. qg and ng.
3.1.1.3 Uvulars (rq)
q is common as a phonetic entity but has marginal phonemic status. Most cases
of phonetic [q] are in the geminated form qq, word-medially or -finally, and
these can be interpreted as the phonetic realization of geminated /rr/, The
conversion of /YY/ to qq is productive, and applies not only word-internally
but also over word boundaries (§3.2.1.1).
Within words, we have cases of morphological gemination such as
/i-avmbb-aet/ >l-qqubb-aet 'he gulped', cf. verbal noun a-rabbu 'gulping'.
At a nonprefixal morpheme boundary (with a suffix or clitic), qq often
represents Μ or IrkJ, as when a morpheme otherwise ending in γ is followed
by a morpheme otherwise consisting of or beginning in t or k (e.g. FeSg -t,
3MaPl object clitic -t, or any of the pronominal clitics beginning in k). An
example is the name of the language, /t-a2-md:saev-t/> t-£e-ma:saeq-q
'Tamashek'; see §3.2.1.1 for more detail. In these cases, the effect is a
bidirectional feature assimilation whereby the t or k adopts the uvular position
of the Y while the latter adopts a voiceless stop articulation.
At word boundaries, we have such examples as preposition dser 'in' plus
any noun beginning in Y, e.g. DA2Y Yussast 'in August', often pronounced
[dajqiu'J'iaet]. Another recurring combination is a verb ending in lSgS -3ΪΥ
followed by particle Yds 'only'.
While /YY/ is regularly realized as qq, there are hints that ungeminated q
may be on the way to becoming a phoneme distinct from Y. This is because q
as well as γ can occur in ungeminated position. While γ is much more
common, there are some cases of q in Arabic borrowings, as in PerfP -aqbael-
'consent' (imperative aqbal, LoImpfP -qdbbael-, cf. noun aelqabdla, all from
Arabic qbl 'accept'). Contrast this with a native stem like -SYbaer- 'kick with
heel' (Imprt 3Ybsr, LoImpfP -Yabbaer-). There are also dialectally sporadic
cases of ungeminated q in non-borrowed vocabulary, especially where back-