Thread by @PhDniX

I thought I had figured out an important verbal group, and presented about it today... and then I ran into Simone Mauri's description of Ayt Atta #Tamazight.

What I'm interested in is how to reconstruct the Aorist and perfect of verbs with two long vowels. A small thread.

Most forms of Central Moroccan Tamazight have an a...u vocalism for both the Aorist and perfect (just like Tashlhiyt). From there I had thought of a way to reconcile the Kabyle form ulwu/ulwa with the Tamaight alwu alwu. I proposed a three step analogy:

1. Start with ulwu/ulwa
2. Through analogy of verbs like agʷəm/ugəm, the aorist was reformed to alwu: alwu/ulwa.
3. The aorist stem was generalized to the perfect: alwu/alwu.

But this explanation totally breaks down for Ayt Atta!

The Aorist is actually the same in Kabyle and Ayt Atta, but the Perfect has perfectly opposite vocalism ulwa in Kabyle, alwu in Ayt Atta. I honestly see no obvious path to reconcile these two.

uɣul has the same a-u perfect. Kabyle (if it is cognate) generalize the perfect stem.

And this problem extends not just to verbs with two u vowels in the aorist, but also to verbs with two i vowels in the Aorist!

Kabyle and Ayt Atta nicely shared the Aorist form irid, but again the Perfect has the mirrored vocalism urad versus arud.

This happens again in Kb. inig/unag and Ayt Atta inig/anug.

I can see two paths to explain this, but see no obvious way to prefer one over the other...

Path 1: Ayt Atta has the archaic form.
Path 2: Kabyle has the archaic form.

Path 1: Kabyle is innovative by introducing the common Ə-A vocalism of the perfect to verbs of this type.
Initial plain vowels become u in the perfect: agʷəm/ugəm 'to draw water'
medial or final u becomes a in the perfect:
mdu/mda 'to finish'.

Then Ayt Atta would be archaic.

Path 2: Ayt Atta is innovative by introducing the A-Ə vocalism of the perfect common for stative verbs.

u/iCCuC verbs have a historical ăCCuC perfect (ă is lost, but corresponds to long vowel a in Ayt Atta).

Ayt Atta iksuḍ/kṣud 'to fear' cf. Tuareg uksaḍ/ăkṣud

From there one might deduce that a verb urad should actually be arud. But this is fairly abstract, and I would rather expect rud than arud in case of analogy.
It is difficult to predict at what stage it happened, if early enough it might be possible, then Kabyle would be archaic.

This is purely focusing on Kabyle and Ayt Atta and their irreconcilable vocalisms. But both of them are still difficult to rhyme with Tuareg irad/ărid and Zenatic, e.g. Figuig rid/rid (though Zenatic and Tuareg seem easy to reconcile).

Any way, it's back to the drawing board for some of the verbs that I discussed today in the presentation I gave for the Berber Languages and Linguistics seminar.

Any smart ideas @ait_kisou or @lameensouag?

I'm very eager to hear if any #Amazigh speakers know these verbs, and what their stems look like.

How do you say 'he will be washed' or 'he was washed'? Do you recognize any of these other verbs?