Abstract
In this chapter we first state our goals and general outlook, and indicate how the content of this book relates to our earlier work on Berber. We then present background information on our subject matter and on the relevant literature.
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Notes
Vergnaud, Halle et al. proposed templatic syllabification as a means of locating the sites for vowel epenthesis. Hyman’s ‘weight units’ were the direct precursors of moras as the term is understood in much current work. Prince and Smolensky’s monograph inaugurated Optimality Theory, which has since become the chief competitor to the rule-based, derivational model of SPE (Chomsky and Halle 1968).
The verbal morphology of Imdlawn Tashlhiyt was described in a systematic fashion in a monograph-sized work published in two parts (DE 1989, 1991). This work also surveys various idiosyncratic alternations which occur when preverbs, clitics and verbs are strung together. Several major templatic processes for deriving nouns and adjectives were discussed and abundantly exemplified in DE (1992). The inflectional morphology of nouns is discussed in detail in Jebbour (1988) and Dell and Jebbour (1991, 1995). These three works describe Tiznit Tashlhiyt, a dialect which presents a few phonological differences with Imdlawn Tashlhiyt as well as numerous lexical ones. But most of the regularities stated in these works are also valid for Imdlawn.
We adopt the general outlook proposed in Chomsky (1986: 15-50).
According to Galand the total population of either country was approximately 25 million in 1981.
This is true in particular of Tamazight, whose name is now also used by some people to refer to any variety of Berber (v. above). On the history of ‘Amazigh’ and ‘Tamazight’, v. Galand (1985: 179-180).
On writing Berber, v. Galand (1989: 344-346).
A linguistic map of Morocco is found at the end of Boukous (1995).
On Tarifit, see e.g. Chtatou (1982), Tangi (1991), Dell and Tangi (1992) and references therein.
On Tamazight, see e.g. Penchoen (1973), Saib (1976, 1978), Guerssel (1976), Willms (1991) and references therein.
There used to be a small minority of Berber-speaking Jews, some of them living in wholly Jewish villages, see e.g. Galand-Pernet and Zafrani (1974).
The name of the language is often given with a short i, e.g. ‘Tashlhit’, ‘Tachelhit’. This is due to the fact that iy has shortened to i in some dialects of Tashlhiyt.
The suffix-iy is used to form occupational nouns and adjectives indicating an origin, e.g. a-rudan-iy ‘from the city of Taroudant’ (t-a-rudan-t).
On feminine singulars with the shape /t-…-t/, v. § 2.5.
Whereas French, for instance, uses masculine singular forms of adjectives to designate languages (le provengal, le portugais), Berber uses feminine singular forms, e.g. t-a-brtqqis-t ‘the Portuguese language’ or ‘Portuguese female’, cf. a-brtqqiz ‘Portuguese male’.
Whence the French adjective chleuh (pronounced [Šlö]). The singular of šluħis š@lħ
On the competition between Berber and MA, see Boukous (1995: 90-93, 102-104).
See Boukous (1995: 108-111).
Like all the abbreviations used in this book, those in the glosses are listed after the Table of Contents. Their meaning will become clear in the next chapter.
Uttered by someone buying meat.
P.c. from R. Ridouane, a native speaker of Haha Tashlhiyt.
Boukous (2000: 46) has observed MA-like schwas in the speech of Ashlhiy children living in the city of Agadir. Boukous compared the command of Tashlhiyt by children raised in the countryside and children raised in cities. His article contains numerous telling examples of language decay in the latter.
The form is nonetheless dissyllabic:.qu.wd. On geminate glides in Tashlhiyt, see § 7.4.
i-mdlaw-n is the plural form of a-mdlaw ‘man from the Imdlawn valley’, v. also t-a-mdlaw-t ‘woman from the Imdlawn valley’ (plural t-i-mdlaw-in). The Imdlawn valley lies in the south corner of the map entitled ‘Le cadre orographique des Seksawa’ which occupies pp. 8 and 9 in Berque (1955/1978), i.e. the right-hand side corner at the top of page 9. The Imdlawn are very similar to the Isksawn, the people described in Berque’s monograph.
But Arabic speakers of eastern Morocco can hear that he comes from the western part of the country.
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Dell, F., Elmedlaoui, M. (2002). Introduction. In: Syllables in Tashlhiyt Berber and in Moroccan Arabic. Kluwer International Handbooks of Linguistics, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0279-0_1
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