ABSTRACT
The CA imperfective, e.g. 3MaSg ya-?kul-'he eats' and 2MaSg ta-?kul-'you eat', appears (s=59J, 94M) in the great majority of MA dialects as -akLil (usually -ak"l-under syncope), -aklll (syncopated -akl-), or -ak(;)}1 plus the relevant pronominal affixes (e.g. 3MaSg y-akLiI, 2FeSg t -ak(" il-i, I PI n-ak(w1-u). These V-initial imperfectives for 'eat' and 'take' arc remarkably stable in MA dialects. Variation in the vocalism (Li, u, or ;) is generally predictable. We get Li in in dialects that have this short rounded vowel. -akul with full 11 occurs in V-length merging dialects (northern and Jcbli M dialects, plus J dialects of Wz 111 and Mk 617), but the 11 is morphophonemically short and so undergoes syncope before a V-initial suffix, as in n-akl-ll 'we cat'. Unrounded -ak(;)}1 is typical of the many J dialects that lack the Li phoneme. -aklll preserves rounding under
syncope, in the form -akwl-, if consonantal labialization is phonologically possible in the relevant dialect; it is easiest o hear the rounding when the suffix is 2FeSg -i rather than PI -u. In J dialects of Tafilalt and often of the northeast, we get -all with the usual shift *k - > t. Some speakers in Jebli Twn-M show spirantization of *k to 9 throughout the paradigm, hence imperfective -a9ul.
