Thread by @PhDniX

It's been a while since I wrote on #Tamazight/#Berber, so I thought it would be nice to do a thread on its plural formation. Much like Arabic (and Semitic more generally), Berber has 'sound plurals' and 'broken plurals'. Let's have a look at how these are reconstructed.

The 'sound plural' is simply formed by a suffix: *-ăn for the masculine, *-en for the feminine. For example:
*a-maziɣ pl. i-maziɣ-ăn "Berber man"
*ta-maziɣ-t pl. *ti-maziɣ-en "Berber woman"

In most dialect *-ăn > -ən and *-en > -in, but some retain the contrast.

If a sound plural suffix is added to a word-final vowel, usually an epenthetic *-t- is infixed to avoid the meeting of two vowels. Perhaps this is due to historical loss of *t (there is some weird stuff with disappearing *t's elsewhere in morphology).

*anu pl. *anu-t-ăn 'well'

As you may have noted above, nouns also usually have prefixes, m. sg. Free state (unmarked) *a-; Annexed State (post-verbal subject/post-prepositional form) *wă; f. sg. *ta-/*tă-; m. pl. *i-/*yə-; f. pl. *ti-/*tə-.

These prefixes were probably articles of some kind originally.

Where in Arabic the use of the sound masculine plural is fairly predictable (mostly used for Adjectives and participles), in Berber it's a lot less so. Many Berber varieties don't really have adjective or participles, and the closest thing -- agent nouns -- may be sound or broken

Mostly two-consonantal nouns have a variant of the sound masculine plural that adds an extension *-iw- or *-aw- to the plural. I've argued that this is originally phonetically conditioned. A preceding low vowel triggers *iw-, an preceding high vowel trigger *-iw-.

*uləβ pl. *uləβ-aw-ăn 'heart' (cf. Semitic *libb- 'id.')
*tiṭṭ-t pl. *tiṭṭ-aw-en 'eye, water source' (yes of Tatooine fame)
*e-nărăz (< *a-nărăz) pl. *i-nărăz-iw-ăn 'claw'

It is tempting, although by no means proven, to connect this suffix with Semitic -ū/ī and Egyptian -w.

The plural suffix of this type is also used for feminine nouns with the *-e or *-a suffix, which I've argued are cognate to the Proto-Semitic *-ay and *-āy suffixes.

*te-βădd-e pl. *ti-βădd-iw-en 'height'
*ta-năkr-a pl. *ti-năkr-iw-en 'standing up'

academia.edu/37112479/The_f…

The most common broken plural replaces the last vowel of the word with *a, every preceding low vowel becomes high (*ă > *ə; *a > *u, rarely *i). High vowels remain unchanged.

*a-ǵărtil pl. *i-ǵərtal 'mat'
*t-uɣməs-t pl. *t-uɣmas 'tooth'
*anu pl. *una 'well'

There is another plural that completely replaces the syllabic shape of the stem, forming its plural in CəCC-an (feminine CəCC-en):
*a-găllid pl. *i-gəld-an 'king'
*e-ɣăzăr pl. *i-ɣəzr-an 'valley, wadi'

This formation is probably cognate to Arabic ɣulām pl. ̣ɣilmān.

A fairly limited group of nouns places *a in the last vowel slot of the stem and adds *-ăn/-en.

*wăššăn pl. *wăššan-ăn 'jackal'
*esḱăr (< *a-asḱăr) pl. *asḱar-ăn (< *i-asḱar-ăn)

I think this might be exclusive to historically CăCCăC stems. But not 100% sure.

The previous plural is presumably related to the 'harmonizing' plural found in verbal nouns. Verbal nouns of heavy verbs infix a long high vowel, *i if no *u occurs in the stem, otherwise *u.

*a-səlməd pl. *i-səlmid-ăn 'teaching'
*a-gugəl pl. *i-gugul-ăn 'being an orfan'

There is a small group of nouns (mostly body parts, but not all) which infix *a (or *ă, depends on the dialect) in the last vowel slot, and geminate the final stem consonant, then following it with *-ăn/-en:

*a-ɣil pl. *i-ɣa/ăll-ăn 'arm'
*a-ʔ(v̆)fud pl. *i-ʔ(v̆)fadd-ăn 'knee'

There's another class that adds an ending *-aʔ or perhaps *-ăʔ (the reflexes are such that we're seemingly missing something in the reconstruction), preceding lowe vowels become high vowels.

*ta-mur-t pl. ti-mur-a/ăʔ 'land'
*ta-ʔ(v̆)mar-t pl. ti-ʔ(ə)mir-a/ăʔ 'beard'

Ghadamsi tmuro could be from *ti-mur-aʔ or *ti-mur-ắʔ
Figuig timura likewise < *ti-mur-aʔ or *ti-mur-ắʔ

Tuareg tafirt 'word' pl. tifir (Ahaggar, Mali) < *ti-mur-ăʔ (unaccented ă); tifira (Ayer Tuareg) < *ti-mur-ắʔ/ti-mur-aʔ.

These forms are currently irreconcilable.

We're probably missing some piece of the puzzle for *vʔ. Stress plays a role in the verb; there's not much evidence for phonemic stress in the noun, and it doesn't quite solve all our issues.

For *ʔ in the verb see @ait_kisou
academia.edu/7977957/The_or…

Finally, some nouns receive a preposed id or ənd to mark the plural (no obvious reconstruction presents itself to resolve these two into one reconstruction). This is common for kinship terms, but may show up elsewhere, e.g. Figuig ṗṗa pl. id ṗṗa 'father'.

Much of this, and more is discussed in my Spanish paper introducing historical phonology and nominal morphology of Berber. It is based on the Workshop I gave in Tenerife and was kindly translated by Jonay Acosta and José Juan Batista.

academia.edu/40781506/Intro…

That's all for today. If you enjoyed this thread about Tamazight/Berber rather than Arabic for a change, let me know.
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