A grammatical sketch of Ghadames Berber (Libya)

212 Pages·2013·0.916 MB·English

by  Maarten Kossmann

BERBER STUDIES
ISSN 1618-1425
Volume 40
Edited by
Harry Stroomer
University of Leiden / The Netherlands
Maarten Kossmann
A Grammatical Sketch
of Ghadames Berber (Libya)
RÜDIGER KÖPPE VERLAG · KÖLN
The series Berber Studies is a linguistic and text oriented series set up to enrich
our knowledge of Berber languages and dialects in general. It is a forum for
data-oriented studies of Berber languages, which may include lexical studies,
grammatical descriptions, text collections, diachronic and comparative studies,
language contact studies as well as studies on specific aspects of the structure of
Berber languages. The series will appear at irregular intervals and will comprise
monographs and collections of papers.
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ISBN 978-3-89645-940-4
ISSN 1618-1425
© 2013 The Author
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Published with financial support from The Netherlands Organisation for Scien-
tific Research (NWO), Project “How Arabic influenced Berber and the
typology of contact-induced change”
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Table of contents
Acknowledgements xi
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Language and sources 1
1.2 Notes on transcription and citations 5
1.3 Abbreviations and other conventions 7
2. Phonology 9
2.1 Consonants 9
2.1.1 Consonantal length 12
2.2 Vowels 14
2.2.1 Vowel length 15
2.2.2 Short (cid:1) and (cid:2) 15
2.3 Assimilations 16
2.3.1 Consonant assimilations 16
2.3.2 Vowel assimilations 17
2.4 Accent 18
3. Nouns 19
3.1 Gender 19
3.2 State 20
3.3 Pre-genitive forms of daž ‘house’ 21
3.4 Number 22
3.4.1 The initial vowel 22
3.4.2 Plural formation in the rest of the word 29
3.4.3 Plural formations with (cid:3)nd- 40
3.5 Loans which retain Arabic morphology 40
3.6 Affiliation prefixes 41
3.7 Collectives 42
4. Pronouns 45
4.1 Independent personal pronouns 45
4.2 Direct Object pronouns 45
4.3 Indirect Object pronouns and pronouns after prepositions 47
and kinship nouns
4.4 Demonstrative pronouns 48
4.5 Pronominal forms with wa, etc. 49
4.6 Other pronominal forms: relative heads 49
5. Deictic elements 53
5.1 Verbal deictics 53
5.2 Nominal and pronominal deictics 56
5.3 Adverbial deictics 59
6. Verbs: stem forms 61
6.1 Verbal derivations 61
6.1.1 Sibilant prefix 61
6.1.2 Nasal prefix 62
6.1.3 Nasal + sibilant prefix 62
6.1.4 Prefix tt(u)- 63
6.2 Aspectual marking 63
6.2.1 First apophonic class 64
6.2.2 Second apophonic class 66
6.2.3 Third apophonic class 69
6.2.4 Fourth apophonic class 73
6.2.5 Apophonic classes of the stative verbs 74
6.2.6 Irregular verbs 76
6.2.7 Imperative stem forms 78
6.2.8 Negative stems 80
6.2.9 A note on the Future aspectual stem 82
6.2.10 Verb forms with changes according to the PNG 84
6.3 Verbal action nouns 87
vi
7. Verbs: inflection 91
7.1 Person, Number, Gender marking 91
7.2 Subject-relative forms (“participles”) 94
8. Quantifiers 99
8.1 Numerals and numeral constructions 99
8.2 Some other quantifiers 100
8.2.1 akk ~ ikk ‘every, each’ 100
8.2.2 imda ~ imdan ‘entire, all’ 100
9. The locative clitic 103
9.1 Form 103
9.2 Position 107
9.3 Use 108
10. Prepositions 111
10.1 i‘towards, to’ 111
10.2 s ‘from, through, at, with (instrumental)’ 112
10.3 d(cid:3)(cid:4) ‘in’ and (cid:4)(cid:3)d ‘in, with’ 114
10.4 (cid:5)af‘on, concerning’ 116
10.5 (cid:5)ur ‘at’ 116
10.6 asid ‘until’ 117
10.7 (cid:4)ar ‘between’ 118
10.8 q(cid:6)b((cid:6))l‘before’ 119
10.9 Preposition-like elements: (cid:6)ddo, dat,d(cid:3)ff(cid:3)r 119
10.10 Preposition-like nouns: inn(cid:3)ž,adda,ammas,ades 120
11. Ideophones 123
12. Possessive constructions 125
12.1 Nominal possession 125
12.1.1 Deictic clitics in possessive constructions 126
12.2 Clausal possession 127
vii
13. Notes on the structure of the noun phrase 129
13.1 Adjectives 129
13.2 The element i(cid:7)- ‘other’ 129
14. Verbal clitics 131
14.1 The clitic complex 131
14.2 Clitic fronting (“attraction”) 131
14.3 Multiple contexts of clitic fronting 135
15 Simple verbal sentences: main structures 137
16. Relative clauses and related constructions 139
16.1 Relative clauses 139
16.1.1 Subject and Direct Object relatives 139
16.1.2 Prepositional relative clauses 141
16.1.3 Locative relative clauses 142
16.1.4 Relative clauses without marking 142
16.1.5 Relative clauses with pronominal markers other than
ke 143
16.2 Constructions related to relative clauses 145
16.2.1 Cleft sentences 145
16.2.2 Question word questions 146
17. Non-verbal sentences and ‘be’-verbs 149
17.1 Non-verbal clauses without a copula 149
17.2 Clauses with the copula (cid:3)nte(ni) 149
17.3 Clefts 152
17.4 Non-verbal constructions with d 152
17.5 Be-verbs: ili 153
17.6 Be-verbs: (cid:6)(cid:4) 155
18. Questions 157
viii
19. The use of the aspects and moods 161
19.1 Perfective 162
19.2 Imperfective 163
19.3 a(l) + Imperfective 167
19.4 d + Future 170
19.5 Aorist 171
19.6 Imperative 173
19.7 Auxiliary verbs? 175
20. Negation 177
20.1 Verbal negation: ak 177
20.2 Verbal negation: w(cid:6)l 178
20.3 Non-verbal negation 181
20.4 The negator awas 183
20.5 The element w(cid:6)llas ‘nobody’ 184
21. Coordination 185
22. Complement clauses 189
23. Subordination 191
23.1 nkud: ‘when, if’, kud ‘when’ 191
23.2 ilam ‘if’ 193
23.3 (cid:4)(cid:3)d ‘when’ 193
23.4 qab(cid:6)l ‘before’ 194
23.5 asid ‘until’ 194
23.6 (cid:3)mm(cid:3)k ‘like, so that’ 195
23.7 imkud ~ amin kud ‘as if’ 197
23.8 (cid:8)afšan ‘because’ 197
References 199
ix