Berber Negation in Diachrony Brugnatelli

8/17/2019 Berber Negation in Diachrony Brugnatelli

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Berber negation in diachrony*

Vermondo BrugnatelliUniversity of Milan-Bicocca

e morphosyntax of negation in Berber is rich and complex, and appears

to be the outcome of multiple processes that have taken place over different

time-periods from prehistory to the present day. e most noteworthy issueis the tendency towards a redundant marking of negation, not only by means

of discontinuous morphemes (circumfixes) but also through the use of special

“negative verb stems” – a feature that is attested in nearly all of the Berber-

speaking area, regardless of the type of negative affixes in use. In this paper,

I attempt to single out the main processes that have led to the present stage,

taking into account the etymologies of prefixal and suffixal negative morphemes,

the origin of negative stems and the role of the so-called Jespersen cycle in the

evolution of Berber negation.

e Berber languages are a linguistic family 1 that is scattered right across Northern

Africa, from the western oases of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean and from theMediterranean coast to the southern borders of the Sahara. ey make up a branch

of the Hamito-Semitic (Afroasiatic) macro-family and are still spoken by some

forty million people, although dialects of the Arabic language are nowadays also

spoken in many regions that were previously only Berber-speaking.

* In this paper, Arabic is written according to the standard transcription, while Berber is

written according to the standard orthography of Kabyle, whenever appropriate. e differ-

ences between both systems are as follows: Berber 〈 c 〉 stays for Arabic 〈 š 〉, 〈 〉 for 〈 ġ 〉, 〈 x 〉

for 〈 h 〉, 〈 〉 for 〈 〉. Moreover, the interdental fricatives [θ] and [ð] are represented by 〈 t 〉 and

〈 d 〉, schwa [ə] is represented by

〈 e

〉 and Tuareg [e] is written

〈é〉. In Medieval Berber, whatI transcribe 〈 g〉 may represent both [g] and [g]. Abbreviations in the examples are: =

aorist, aorist particle; = auxiliary verb; = negator, negative particle; = negative

perfective; = orientation particle; = participle, mark of participle; = perfective;

= plural; = predicative particle. e sign = marks an amalgam, a dash separates clitics,

while underscore marks the existence of sandhi phenomena.

. From a linguistic point of view, Berber is more a linguistic family than a language.

However, many people, especially in countries where it has little or no recognition, still regard

it as one language, for ideological and political (extra-linguistic) reasons involving prestige.


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Vermondo Brugnatelli

With regard to negation, the Berber languages display several clear-cut com-

mon features but also many innovations that are peculiar to isolated dialects or

shared by a small number of languages. A comprehensive description of such a

vast and manifold subject has not yet been written, although many partial sketches

and studies are already available.2 As far as comparative linguistics is concerned,

an overall outline of Berber negation within a Hamito-Semitic framework is given

in Brugnatelli (2006).

From a diachronic perspective, there are many interesting phenomena to be

observed in the domain of negation in relation to both historic and pre-historic

times. Given that it would be both over-lengthy and superfluous to deal with all of

these in the current paper, I have chosen to focus on the key aspects that appear tooffer the most potential for cross-linguistic comparison, namely the origin of the

negative particles, the negative forms of the verb and the question of “discontinu-

ous negation” and how it relates to the issue of Arab-Berber interference.

. Origin of the negative particles

e Berber languages possess many different negative particles. Some of these are

widely attested and quite likely to have derived from a common element, while

others are restricted to smaller areas and may nearly always be considered innova-

tions. e creation of new negative elements took place above all in the domain of verbless sentences, possibly as a consequence of contact with Arabic, a language

that tends to use different negative strategies for nominal and verbal sentences

(Brugnatelli 2006).3

e negation used with verbs oen consists of circumfixes:4 one particle (1)

precedes the verb and another (2) follows it. However, 2 is not used in the

. For a general picture of negation in the Berber languages, letting aside the specific issues

that will be dealt with below, see the contributions in Chaker & Caubet (1996) and the papers

of Galand (1994), Brugnatelli (2006), Lucas (2007), Mettouchi (2009), Taine-Cheikh (2011).

. Some of these new negative tools are dealt with in Kahlouche (2000), Brugnatelli (2010),and Laioui (1996, 2007: 234–236; 2011: 62–69). For the sake of convenience, the present

paper will deal mostly with verbal negation.

. Circumfixes are frequent in the Berber grammar: in addition to their use in negation,

they are normally used in nouns (for which gender and number are expressed by prefixes +

suffixes) and in the conjugation of verbs (see Footnote 12 below). e sporadic “doubling”

of clitics before and aer the verb could also be viewed as the development of circumfixes;

it occurs in Libya (Zuara), Algeria (Mzab, Aurès, Ngouça): Brugnatelli (1993: 234–237) and

Morocco (Tarifit: Laioui 2007: 128).


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Berber negation in diachrony

southern area of the Berber domain: Zenaga (Mauritania), Tashelhit (Southern

Morocco) and Tuareg, nor in the Saharan varieties of Mzab, Ouargla, Ghadames,

Sokna, El-Fogaha and Siwa, nor in Yefren (Tripolitania).5 On the other hand, some

languages in Tunisia and Libya omit 1 and use 2 as the only negator: Sened

(Provotelle 1911: 26) and Awjila (van Putten 2013: 83–85, 263). e optional omis-

sion of 1 is also attested in Zuara (Tunisia; Mitchell 2009: 100–103) and in

Western Tarifit (Morocco; Laioui 2007: 234–235).

In addition, many verbs take on peculiar stems in negative sentences. Nearly

all the Berber languages possess such negative forms in the perfective, while a

smaller, though appreciable, number also have a negative imperfective (Kossmann

1989; Brugnatelli 2002; Laioui 2007: 175–176).6 is redundant way of markingnegative sentences through verbal morphology is also attested in most of the lan-

guages that do not use post-verbal negative particles.

. e preverbal negative particle

e negator that is placed before the verb – in some dialects also before nominal

predicates – takes many forms, which may easily be taken as cognates:wәr /ur , wәl /

ul , wә/u, wәd /ud , etc.7 Other preverbal negators, which do not require 2 aer

the verb, are attested in some Libyan dialects: Sokna (Fezzan) ingî (mostly), but

also yul , lā, abû; El Fogaha (Fezzan) (e)nk and bak; Ghadames (near the Tunisian

and Algerian borders) ak; Yefren (Tripolitania) mi.8

. Some of these languages have innovated the negator. See below, § 1.1.

. As a general rule, most of the Berber languages have a threefold verbal system based on

the opposition between a perfective and an imperfective stem, while a third stem, called aorist,

is unmarked as far as aspect is concerned and has distinctive, mostly modal, functions.

. An interesting restriction in the use of this particle is the fact that in most languages it

cannot be used with the aorist, but only with perfective or imperfective forms. To examine

the origin of this state of affairs would be a lengthy process and outside the scope of this

paper, given that it would also require a wider investigation of the genesis of the modern

tripartite TAM system (aorist, perfective, imperfective), which is not that originally in use but

appears to be the result of long-term processes that reshaped the entire verbal system (Galand2010: 202–207).

. Most of these particles have not yet been investigated. With regard to mi in Yefren, see

Brugnatelli (2014: 130). e origin of the preverbal negator ak used in Ghadames as an alter-

native to wel is puzzling and difficult to account for. Mettouchi (1996:191) considers it to be

a cognate of the most widespread words used for 2 (discussed below): “Il peut arriver que

l’élément généralement réalisé après le verbe prenne la place de ur . C’est le cas pour le parler

de Ghadames” (“it may happen that the element usually uttered aer the verb replaces ur . is

is the case with the variety of Ghadames”). A misinterpretation of this statement leads Lucas


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e most widespread form is wәr /ur , which appears to be similar to another

particle, war-, used before nouns as a prefix denoting the lack of something, for

example:

(1) Jerba (Tunisia)

war abekkad su

lacking sin

‘sinless’, i.e. ‘young child’.

is similarity has led some scholars to posit a link between the two particles

(Loubignac, 1924: 177; Basset 1940: 221; Chaker 1996: 12), but two facts challenge

this view: firstly, the privative particle has a feminine form tar- implying that theinitial wa- sounds should rather be regarded as the reflex of a masculine pronomi-

nal marker (wa, which has a feminine counterpart ta); secondly, the presence of

the prefix war- in languages that use wel and not wer as a negator, points to an

independent origin. See, for instance, an example from an unpublished old Ibād site

text9 containing both particles:

(2) d iwalen g g wel yelli war elh seqq

word= in 3=be= lacking truth

‘they are utterances in which there is nothing untruthful’ (f. 82b, l. 8)

In any case, Lionel Galand has repeatedly stressed the fact that, given the multiple

forms of the negator, it seems preferable to consider only the beginning soundwe-/u- as the “basis of the negative particle”, because it is the common element

shared by all the languages (Galand 1994: 171; 2010: 279–280). is implies that -r ,

-l and -d were added during a later phase, and this could account for the different

forms attested.

to erroneously list the language of Ghadames among those that only possess a post-verbal

negator (2013: 412). More convincingly, Galand (1994: 172) points to another pan-Berber

particle, akw/akkw ‘all’, which is oen used to strengthen other particles. In the Moroccandialect of the Ayt Youssi of Enjil it precedes the preverbal negator ur when the meaning is ‘not

at all’. More details in Galand (2011: 2nd part 66). An example:

ccifur s-addx akkw ur issin zznaqi driver-this at all 1 knew= streets ‘this driver does not even know the streets’ (Galand 2011: 1st part 26).

. e old Berber text referred to in this article is the manuscript Ms.Or. 2550 of the Na-tional Library of Tunis. It contains a medieval commentary to Abū Ġānim’s Mudawwanah, animportant legal work of the Ibād site branch of Islam.


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Galand’s hypothesis was recently corroborated by a discovery (Brugnatelli

2011) regarding a little-studied dialect (Chenoua region, Algeria). In this Berber

variety, a negative construction meaning ‘not yet’ is formed using a kind of auxil-

iary verb; this is also the case in many other Berber languages,10 but here the para-

digm also demands a form of conjugation of the negator ur . More precisely, the

conjugated element is the second part, r , while the first part, u, remains invariable:

(3) 1.s. u r t uci ad 2.s. u her t ucid ad 3.m.s. u yer t uci ad

3.f.s. u her t uci ad

1.p. u ner t

uci ad 2.p. u her t ucim ad

3.m.p. u r t ucin ad

3.f.p. u r t ucinţ ad

Such a state of affairs may be viewed as the incipient grammaticalisation of a pair

of verbs that have lost the personal indices occurring between them: according to

this scheme, the second verb (uci, here with the imperfective stem t uci) displays

only the suffixed, and the first (*r ) only the prefixed, indices.11 e previous phase

was probably as follows:

(4) 1.s. *u r (e ) t uci ad 2.s. *u her (d ) (h)t ucid ad

3.m.s. *u yer (i)t

uci ad

etc.

is discovery, first presented and more thoroughly explained and discussed in

Brugnatelli (2011), reopens, on a new basis, a long-debated issue in Berber his-

torical studies, namely the proposed verbal origin of the negative particle. is

hypothesis was put forward by Loubignac in the work cited earlier (1924: 177), in

which he suggested bringing together under one and the same root R the negative

particle wer , the privative prefix war and the verb ar ‘be void, desert’ of Central

Morocco; later on, A. Basset took up the debate in a detailed study concluding that:

. For instance, in Nafūsī wel yuc we dd-yusu-c ‘he has not yet come’, lit. 1 3=

1 -3=come=-2. Other verbs are used in other regions. Elsewhere, for instance

in Jerba, this verb is lexicalised and has become an invariable particle wecci. More details in

Brugnatelli (2011: 521–524).

. e Berber personal indices may be: prefixes (3 y-, 3 t-, 1 n-), suffixes (1 - ,

3-n, 3 -nt ) or circumfixes (2 t-…-d , 2 t-…-m, 2 t-…-mt ). In Chenoua dialect,

morphological t usually becomes h.


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“We would be strongly tempted to recognize in war an old 3rd pers. masc. sg.

preterite of a quality verb whose characteristics are already fully determinable. In

this case, the root would be biliteral, WR; tar would be due to reshaping (…) and

wər , whose vocalism remains obscure, would probably be a frozen masc. sg.” 12

What he considered important was the fact that most nouns following the priva-

tive war are in the free state instead of the annexed state required by most prepo-

sitions.13 e free state is typical of the direct object and could be easily explained

if the original construction was a verb phrase and not a prepositional phrase (see

also Prasse 1972: 244).

On the other hand, the argument put forward by Prasse (1972: 244; 1973: 12) –

quite similar to the point of view of Marcy (1936, 1940/41) – took into consider-ation the behaviour of negation in the relative and wh-interrogative clauses, which

require a special form of the verb, the so-called participle. In these constructions,

the morphemes of the participle are not suffixed as in positive sentences, but

placed before the verb and aer the negator. As a consequence of this shi, these

morphemes may be seen as the participial mark placed aer the negator, and the

method adopted to transcribe a negative expression in relative or interrogative

clauses depends on whether this theory is accepted or rejected:

(5) a. uren yufil

= 3=be tanned=

b. our en ioufil

3=be tanned=

‘(which is) not tanned’ (newer and older spelling of the same phrase in

Drouin 1996: 244)

e case of Chenoua negation examined above suggests an earlier scenario some-

where in between the reconstructions of those positing an ancient verb meaning

‘not being’ and those who have not accepted this theory, considering the negator

to have been an invariable particle from the earliest stages of Berber. Actually, it

seems that only the last part of the negator may be traced back to a verb, while

. “Nous serions fort tentés de retrouver en war une ancienne 3e pers. masc. sg. de prétéritd’un verbe de qualité aux caractéristiques dès maintenant parfaitement déterminables. En ce

cas, la racine serait bilitère, WR ; tar serait dû à une réfection (…) et wər , dont le vocalisme

reste obscur, serait sans doute un masc. sg. figé” (1940: 222). Chaker (1996: 12–14) accepts this

theory and assumes that the different vocalism of wər and war points to a contrast between

aorist and “preterite” (i.e. perfective).

. e opposition of two “states” in nouns (“free” vs. “annexed”) is a well-known feature of

Berber grammar and does not require in-depth presentation here. e best updated descrip-

tion of the phenomenon, with a critical bibliography on the topic, is offered by Galand (2010),

Chapters 4.1–4.3 and 5.3.


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the initial part u/we was a basic uninflected negator, as previously suggested by

Galand.

According to Galand (2010: 284), the conjugated element of the final part of

the negator derives from a monoconsonantal verb meaning ‘will, want’. is verb

still exists as iri in Moroccan Berber (Tashelhit in the South as well as dialects of

central Morocco), and as әr or äru in Tuareg. is is fully consistent with the form

of the negative particle in all those dialects where it appears as ur /wer . However,

some dialects display a lateral [l ] in the negator, which appears as ul /wel (Ouargla,

Ghadamès, Jerba (partially), Mzab, Nefousi, Central Morocco: Zemmour, Iziyan).14

In this respect, it is worth noting that the verb itself may have a variant with [l ]. As a

matter of fact, in a Medieval Berber text in which the preverbal particle is wel , I wasable to single out a verb il meaning ‘will, want’: in some instances, the word yil is

translated by an Arabic gloss yurīdu ‘ he wants’. For instance:

(6) Arab text: yurīdu iqtit sā a māli-ka

Berber translation: yil [Gloss: yurīdu] s we res n wed rim-ik

‘he wants to take possession of your money’ (f. 286b, l. 2)15

In any case, this phonetic issue requires further investigation, given that the Berber

varieties in which the preverbal negator is ul /wel usually also display l- variants

of other morphological elements, such as the preposition el /al ‘towards’ (vs. the

more frequent er /ar ) or the particle ala (vs. ara) used before relatives.16

. e post-verbal particle

As has already been pointed out, in most Berber languages the verbal negation con-

sists of two elements, one placed before the verb ( 1) and one aer it (2).

e second element is not the same in all varieties, and the differences among the

particles attested in different regions appear to be greater than those existing in the

prefixed negator. e situation is complicated by interference, given that most of the

Arab Maghribian dialects also display a suffixed negative particle that is sometimes

similar to the Berber equivalent. When neighbouring Berber and Arabic dialects

possess particles that resemble each other, the oldest descriptions of Berber tended

. Concerning ud , at the beginning the consonant d might have been an element added

in order to avoid a hiatus. For instance, in Jerba 1 is usually u/we (seldom wel ), but a free

choice exists between w- and wed (d )- before a vowel: w-ud ife -c / wed d -ud ife -c ‘I did not

come in’.

. e spelling is sure, since the word is fully vocalised: the consonant y bears the sign of the

i vowel, and the final l has a sukūn, which means lack of a following vowel.

. For a more detailed discussion of this issue concerning the preposition, see Brugnatelli

(2006: 69). As for the other particles, see below (§ 1.2.2.).


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to consider 2 a borrowing from Arabic, but this is not always the case (Brug-

natelli 1987a). In reality, the most widely used particles for 2 may be traced

back to one and the same lexical item, “the proto-Berber forms *k y ăra ~ (h)ăra(t )

‘thing’ ” (Kossmann 2013: 332). e original forms have undergone divergent devel-

opments in different areas, and 2 may appear as: kra/k ra/cra, ara, ka/k a/ca or k/

k /c.17 us, the palatalisation of velars occurring in certain Berber varieties (above

all in the so-called Zanata dialects), has led to a form of 2 comparable to the

corresponding Arabic morphemes (šay , ši or š from the classic word šay ‘thing’).18

.. “Jespersen cycle”

e frequent usage of circumfixes in Berber negation suggests that its historicaldevelopment may be described in terms of the so-called “Jespersen cycle”, a pro-

cess through which many world languages renew their negative structures by add-

ing redundant elements that over time become part of the standard negation.

is process is customarily represented as comprising three main stages:

Stage I = only preverbal negator (1 …);

Stage II = twofold negator, preverbal and post-verbal (1 … 2);

Stage III = only post-verbal negator (… 2)

As pointed out in the most recent studies, this tripartite classification is somewhat

sketchy and would benefit from the inclusion of subtypes based on the degree of

coexistence in a given language of the structures of each of the three main stages(van der Auwera 2009, 2010: 75–85).

e similarity between the negative structures of North-African modern

Arabic dialects and those of Berber has prompted scholars to explore the ques-

tion of the origin of discontinuous morphemes within the framework of linguistic

interference:

“e fact that those varieties of Arabic and Berber which have reached stage II or

III of JC are spoken in largely the same geographical area raises the question of

whether the stage II construction was spread from one language to the other via

contact, and, if so, which was the source and which the target language as far as

this structure is concerned.” (Lucas 2007: 401)

. Other particles used for 2 will not be examined here. Kossmann (2013: 332) suggests

that ani, used in Eastern Kabylia (Algeria), is derived from ani ‘where’. Laioui (2013a and

2013b) examines the Riffian 2 bu, which has also spread to the neighbouring Arabic dia-

lects. Another particle attested in Eastern Kabylia is ula (Rabhi 1992 and 1996).

. Kossmann (2013: 333) set up a table summarizing the forms of 2 in the principal

Berber varieties and regrouping them into three columns according to what he considers

surely Berber, surely Arabic and ambiguous.


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It is difficult to identify a clear-cut solution, given the lack of material from the

earliest stages of spoken Arabic and Old Berber. For this reason, Lucas’ suggestion

that, in Berber, Stage II “developed under the influence of Arabic” (2013: 402) is

not conclusive (see also Laioui 2013a for a critical discussion of Lucas’ hypoth-

esis). e main reason put forward concerns the areal distribution, “consistent

with a gradual spread westwards and southwards of the cycle in the local con-

tact varieties of Arabic” (Lucas 2013: 413). But the areal data may also be read in

the opposite way: in terms of the loss of a redundant feature in peripheral areas.

For instance, both the easternmost language, Siwa, and the westernmost, Zenaga,

no longer possess state opposition in nouns, but this alone does not justify the

straightforward assumption that this is an innovation they never shared with theother Berber languages (Brugnatelli 1987b). Furthermore, the sporadic presence

of 2 in Ancient Ibād sī Berber, in both a more archaic form (-cra) and a phoneti-

cally reduced one (-c) seems consistent with viewing it as an ancient construction

that is losing ground, rather than as a newly acquired innovation. e influence

of Arabic might be seen, rather, as a stimulus to preserve 2 in the Berber

varieties in which it had become similar to the Arabic equivalent, while most of

the so-called kem dialects, where 2 did not undergo a palatalisation, have lost

it (Brugnatelli 1987a: 58).

A decisive argument in favour of a very early stage characterised by a twofold

negator across the whole Berber area derives, in my opinion, from the wide diffu-

sion of negative stems in all the verbal systems. For a more in-depth look at thissubject, see § 2 below.

.. Kabyle 2 ara

e Kabyle particle ara has attracted the attention of researchers because it is

homophonous with another particle ara, which is the aorist particle used in rela-

tives and wh-interrogatives. Mettouchi (2001) strongly asserted that both derive

from one and the same lexical unit, which in the course of time came to take

on such differing functions via processes of reanalysis (whereby 2 in negative

sentences preceding a relative would have been reinterpreted as the antecedent

of the relative itself and subsequently as an aorist particle).19 However, the series

of steps implied by this theory does not match any known process in other lan-guages; furthermore, the paper does not examine comparative data from other

Berber varieties.

. A different opinion on the origin of this particle is expressed by Chaker (1983: 121): “asa matter of fact, ara is the amalgam of ay ‘this’ + ad ‘non-real’ ” (“ara est en fait l’amalgame deay ‘ce’ + ad ‘non-réel’ ”) (see also ibid. 159).


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As a matter of fact, a specific aorist particle that is used in relatives and wh-

interrogatives is also found outside of Kabylia. In the language of Figuig this

particle is ala (7). It has also been documented elsewhere, for instance in the

old language of Jerba (in a religious text composed at the beginning of the 19th

century) (8) and even in Medieval Berber from the Ibād site regions (Tunisia/

Libya) (9).

(7) Figuig: wi stt ala nawey?

who her take==

‘who will marry her?’ (Kossmann 1997: 268)

(8) Jerba w’ ala s nuc who to him give==

‘who will give him’ (Brugnatelli 2011: 529)

(9) Ibād site w’ ala nz sem lxemr

who press== wine

‘whoever will produce wine’ (f. 398a, l. 1–2)

e similarity of forms and functions makes it probable that ala and Kabyle ara

are cognate. e only slight phonetic difference lies in the quality of the liquid,

much in the same way as the negative particles ur and ul or the prepositions ar

and al mentioned above.20 e Medieval Berber evidence is important not only

because it shows that this particle is old (while Mettouchi’s theory frames it as a

recent development), but also because it makes clear that it has nothing to do with

2, attested as c or cra.21

Most probably, another cognate is the particle la of Zuara (Libya), which is a

connective (“relateur”: Galand 2005: 192–193) introducing a relative that may be

either verbal or verbless:

(10) wuh la yemmut

that one 3=die=

‘the one who is dead’

knečč la d_tamet st sut

me _woman

‘I, who am a woman’

. Kabyle ara has several phonetic variants: a a, a, aa, aa, ara. Other possible cognates

(such as Gourara a or Mzab a a) are discussed in Brugnatelli (2011: 529–530).

. In the Medieval text, cra is also used as an indefinite pronoun in non-negative expres-

sions, such as cra n ‘some of’, ‘a little of’, in the same way as the Kabyle kra.


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In Zuara, la may be used as a subordinating connective in other cases too (11),

similarly to ala in Figuig (12) and Old Ibād sī Berber (13):

(11) bed la kemməlnet ccáhi

aer 3=finish= tea

‘aer they had finished tea’ (Mitchell 2009: 274)

(12) qbel ala idjiwen

before 3=be sated=

‘before he is sated’ (Kossmann 1997: 330)22

(13) qabbel ala yeg ad in

before 3=do= this ‘before he does this’ (f. 310a, l.11)23

At this early stage of the language, the particle was also used in cle sentences, as

in the following example:

(14) d elqimet en yelemlemen g essuq ala yuc

price of y. in market 3=give=

‘it is the market price of y.-s [unknown word] that he will give’ (f. 403b, l. 8)

e fact that all these particles are strongly connected with relatives raises the

question of a possible link with the Tuareg particle éré , which is not a connective

but a pronoun – ‘anyone who’ – that is solely used as an antecedent of a relative

clause. Prasse (1972: 189) proposed the following etymology of the last-mentionedterm: “i-irâ, i-irê ‘un qu’il (on) veut’ ”, i.e. a pronoun i (“pronom d’appui”) followed

by the verb ăr ‘will, want’. Interestingly, this same construction is widely accepted

as the source of a “future” particle in Tashelhit (Southern Marocco), namely ra, rad

/ara, arad .24 An in-depth analysis of the usages and functions of all these gram-

matical devices falls outside the scope of this paper, but this brief comparative

outline is sufficient to support the claim that the Kabyle ara used as 2 should

be regarded as independent of the aorist particle ara.

. Such cases of use with the perfective prevent us from considering ala a simple “variant

of the prospective preverb under ‘attraction’ [i.e. in relatives and wh-interrogatives: V.B.]”

(“variante du préverbe prospectif en attraction”, Kossmann 1997: 442).

. Interestingly, the same construction bə d la ‘après que’ “aer (that)” appears in Takrouna

Arabic (Tunisia): Galand (2005: 193). Maybe in this case a borrowing from Berber is more

probable than the other way round. See bə d la with the same meaning.

. A possible link between the Kabyle ara and the Tashelhit rad has already been proposed

by Taine-Cheikh (2009: 98).


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. e negative verbal forms

Another distinctive feature of the Berber languages is the use of special forms of

the perfective and imperfective stems in negative constructions. Negative stems

are seldom used without the presence of other negators, yet their negative value is

indisputable and in some – admittedly few – cases they may be the only means of

expressing negation. For instance, in Kabyle (Dallet 1982: 530):

(15) a. mazal yet st ses

still 3=sleep=

“he is still sleeping”

b. mazal yet st sis still 3=sleep=

“he is not yet sleeping”

e most widespread form is the negative perfect, which appears in nearly all

the varieties, while the negative imperfective is less generalized but nonetheless

scattered across the whole area and should probably also be considered a com-

mon form. is is further confirmed by the fact that the negative imperfective is

attested in ancient texts even in areas in which it is not currently in use.

Both perfective and imperfective stems undergo similar modifications in the

negative form. A survey reported in Brugnatelli (2002: 168) indicated that these

changes may be summarised as follows:

1. vowel fronting (a > é /i and ä > e/é )

2. shortening of the first vowel

3. lengthening of the last vowel

In general, shortening and lengthening of the vowels may be detected in Tuareg

only, given that the other Berber languages do not usually distinguish between

short and long vowels.25 On the contrary, vowel fronting is a general rule, affecting

the negative stems in all varieties.

Some examples from different areas:

(16) a. – Tuareg

perfect neg. perfect imperfect neg. imperfect

ikräs ikrés ikârräs ikerres ‘knot’

ilsa ilsé ilâss iless ‘wear’

ibberäġ = itâbärâġ iteberiġ ‘show off’

. For the changes in vocalism of the perfective in the negative form as well as in the so-

called resultative, see Brugnatelli (2005: 376–378).


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b. – Jerba

yez swa yez swi iz sugga yez suggi ‘go down’

yebbes yebbis yetbessa yetbessi ‘be switched off’

yewet = yeččat yeččit ‘strike’

From a diachronic point of view, these forms are easily explained as the result of

phonotactic changes involving the final part of the stem, possibly under the influ-

ence of a suffixed negative particle. is would account for the shortening of the

beginning vowels and the lengthening of the final ones (via a le-to-right stress

shi) as well as for the fronting of (final) vowels (as a consequence of Umlaut,

assuming that the original particle contained front vowels).

An interesting parallel comes from the Arabic dialects of Egypt (DakhlaOasis), in which negative verbal forms have arisen from positive ones, displaying

a vocalic difference most likely provoked by “consonant clustering and heavy syl-

lable formation”, due to the affixation of 2 (Woidich 1995–97: 14–15):

(17) Western dialects: i gom > ma-ti gam-š ‘do not speak Cairene!’

Central dialects: si an > ma-si in-š /ma-si en- š «he did not ask».

Likewise, in a 19th century religious poem from Jerba I detected an opposition

between forms such as er-s (‘by-him’ = ‘he has’) and we r-is-c (‘1 by-him-

2’ = ‘he has not’), with the development of a full vowel i under the influence of

an affix added at the end of the complex.

In spite of the strong evidence in favour of a purely phonetic origin of the phe-nomenon, some scholars still share the opinion put forward by Picard (1957) that

the negative perfective represents a sort of “intensive” form of perfective (“prétérit

intensif”). Chaker (1996: 18) affirmed that it was “a former intensive form which

must have been used in environments strongly characterised by modality: negative

statements (prohibition), wishes, unreal hypotheses, etc.”26 As already pointed out

by Brugnatelli (2002: 171), the negative perfect is absent when modality is most

heavily involved, such as in wishes (optative) and oaths, in which Berber uses,

respectively, a wer/wel + aorist and ma (or equivalents) + positive perfect, without

2. As for the counterfactual conditional – the only other instance apart from

negative sentences in which the negative perfect may occur – it should be noted

that this implies a negation, and that some connectives introducing it are formedby an amalgam containing the negative particle ur/wer (e.g. the Tashelhit mur , and

possibly also the Kabyle lemmer ).

. “Une ancienne forme intensive qui devait être employe dans des environnements à

forte modalisation: noncs ngatifs (interdiction), de souhait, d’hypothse irrelle, etc.”


14/17


e existence of negative verb stems in all Berber languages could be viewed

in itself as a pan-Berber strategy of double-marking the negation (Schmitt-Brandt

1979: 235; Brugnatelli 1987a: 59; Laioui 2013a: 87). e fact that such forms

probably derived from elements placed towards the right end of the verbal com-

plex strengthens the hypothesis that Berber achieved Stage II of the Jespersen cycle

in very ancient times, earlier than any contact with Arabic. e actual shape of the

added element is difficult to reconstruct. It is even possible that the attested forms

of 2 are innovated forms which replaced or were added to earlier morphemes,

given that the most important phonetic change is palatalisation, which in principle

entails the presence of a front vowel. We nd similar phenomena in many other

world languages, such as the Old Irish genitive maicc (from macc ‘son’), in whicha nal -i, preserved in Ogam maqqi, had completely disappeared leaving only a

phonetic vestige in the palatalisation of the nal consonant, or the well-known

phenomenon of Umlaut in German, in which nal vowels undergo fronting under

the influence of i-endings that have now disappeared.

. Conclusion

e diachronic evolution of Berber negation is associated with the so called

Jespersen Cycle in a number of ways and may contribute to a deeper understanding

of the linguistic phenomena determining the cycle’s multiple outcomes.In particular, a rst key observation is that Berber, with its widespread use of

two concatenative negators (1, 2) combined with a third, non-concatenative

one (namely the use of a negative apophonic stem), can be considered one of the few

languages to possess a “triple negation” (Laioui 2013a: 87), a feature rst pointed

out and studied in Lewo, a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Vanuatu, and

later also in some Brabantian and Italian dialects (van der Auwera et al. 2013). As a

consequence, in relation to the origin of the negative stems, the phonetic modica-

tions triggered by a post-verbal negator should be viewed as a sixth source of new

(non axal) negators, in addition to those already known, which are:

1. a word expressing minimal value: French pas ‘(not even a) step’;

2. a negative word: English not , which originally meant ‘nothing’;3. an emphatic element: such as French du tout or English at all ;

4. a particle of negative answer: Brazilian Portuguese naõ;

5. repetition of the rst negator: Brabantian nie.

Across the vast area in which Berber is spoken, all possible stages of the “cycle”

may be found (1 V; 1 V 2; V 2), although the relative chronology of

the changes has not yet been rmly established.


15/17


Further in-depth comparative study of the different developments taking

place in different regions will contribute to a more advanced understanding of the

multiple factors involved in the evolution of negation.

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