A Grammar of Tamashek (Tuareg of Mali)

8.5 Participles (subject relatives) 491

If there is no noun head, a special set of indefinite demonstratives can be

pressed into service as dummy heads ('a good one', etc.). The forms are shown

in (511).

(511) Demonstrative Head of Indefinite Relative

MaSg = MaPl 1

FeSg = FePl t-ϊ

One could argue, by analogy to other demonstratives (e.g. MaSg w-ά 'this'

versus MaPl w-ί, FeSg t-ά, and FePl t-i, §4.3.1), that the plurals in (511) are

structurally distinct from the singulars (e.g. FePl /t-i-i/ with the two i's then

contracting to one), but if so the difference is phonetically vacuous. In any

event, plurality in subject relatives is clearly marked by the participle itself, so

the only number-gender information added non-redundantly by the

demonstrative is gender in the plural. Examples are in (512); note that the

lengthened ά in the Resit stem is not (re-)shortened.

(512) a. i 0 -oldY-aen

Dem 3MaSgS-be.good.Reslt-Partpl.MaSg

'a good one-Ma'

b. i οΐάγ-nen

Dem be.good.Reslt-Partpl.Pl

'good ones-Ma'

c. t-i t-olar-aet

Fe-Dem 3FeSgS-be.good.Reslt-Partpl.FeSg

'a good one-Fe'

d. t-i olar-nen

Fe-Dem be.good.Reslt-Partpl.Pl

'good ones-Fe'

e. zewwasd-a2Y addinaet-naenasr azzar-nen

arrive.PerfP-lSgS people-lPlPoss dwell.Reslt-Partpl.Pl

daeY ae-kall w-en-dasY η arsebaenda ί

in Sg-land Ma-Dist-Anaph Poss Gourma Prox

Ί arrived to (=among) our people (=kin) who live in that

(same) country of the Gourma (south of the Niger River).'

Indefinite (like definite) participles may take complements. In the case of
indefinite participles (513), any clitics appear after the head noun since there is
no demonstrative head to host them. (We will see that this remains true when
the head noun is followed by a preverbal particle like Neg waer.) In (513.a),