Berber Languages - Grammar

Grammar

Nouns in the Berber languages vary in gender (masculine versus feminine), in number (singular versus plural) and in state (free state versus construct state). In the case of the masculine, nouns generally begin with one of the three vowels of Berber, a, u or i (in standardised orthography, e represents a schwa inserted for reasons of pronunciation):

afus "hand"

argaz "man"

udem "face"

ul "heart"

ixef "head"

iles "tongue"

While the masculine is unmarked, the feminine (also used to form diminutives and singulatives, like an ear of wheat) is marked with the circumfix t...t. Feminine plural takes a prefix t... :

afus → tafust

udem → tudemt

ixef → tixeft

ifassen → tifassin

Berber languages have two types of number: singular and plural, of which only the latter is marked. Plural has three forms according to the type of nouns. The first, "regular" type is known as the "external plural"; it consists in changing the initial vowel of the noun, and adding a suffix -n:

afus → ifassen "hands"

argaz → irgazen "men"

ixef → ixfawen "heads"

ul → ulawen "hearts"

The second form of the plural is known as the "broken plural". It involves only a change in the vowels of the word:

adrar → idurar "mountain"

agadir → igudar "wall / castle"

abaghus → ibughas "monkey"

The third type of plural is a mixed form: it combines a change of vowels with the suffix -n:

izi → izan "(the) fly"

azur → izuran "root"

iziker → izakaren "rope"

Berber languages also have two types of states or cases of the noun, organized ergatively: one is unmarked, while the other serves for the subject of a transitive verb and the object of a preposition, among other contexts. The former is often called free state, the latter construct state. The construct state of the noun derives from the free state through one of the following rules: The first involves a vowel alternation, whereby the vowel a becomes u :

argaz → urgaz

amghar → umghar

adrar → udrar

The second involves the loss of the initial vowel, in the case of some feminine nouns:

tamghart → temghart "woman / mature woman"

tamdint → temdint "town"

tarbat → terbat "girl"

The third involves the addition of a semi-vowel (w or y) word-initially:

asif → wasif "river"

aḍu → waḍu "wind"

iles → yiles "tongue"

uccen → wuccen "wolf"

Finally, some nouns do not change for free state:

taddart → taddart "house / village"

tuccent → tuccent "female wolf"

The following table gives the forms for the noun amghar "old man / leader":