Berber negation in diachrony*

Vermondo Brugnatelli
University of Milan-Bicocca

The 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. The most noteworthy issue
is 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 Berberspeaking area, regardless of the type of negative affixes in use. In this paper,
Iattempt 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.

The Berber languages are a linguistic family1 that is scattered right across Northern
Africa, from the western oases of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean and from the
Mediterranean coast to the southern borders of the Sahara. They 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. The dierences between both systems are as follows: Berber c stays for Arabic , for , x
for h , ! for " . Moreover, the interdental fricatives [] and [] are represented by t! and
d!, schwa [] is represented by e and Tuareg [e] is written . In Medieval Berber, what
I transcribe g$ may represent both [ga] and [g]. Abbreviations in the examples are: aor =
aorist, aorist particle; aux = auxiliary verb; neg = negator, negative particle; npf = negative
perfective; op = orientation particle; part = participle, mark of participle; pf = perfective;
pl = plural; pred = predicative particle. The 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.

 Vermondo Brugnatelli

With regard to negation, the Berber languages display several clear-cut common 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 to
offer the most potential for cross-linguistic comparison, namely the origin of the
negative particles, the negative forms of the verb and the question of discontinuous negation and how it relates to the issue of Arab-Berber interference.

Origin of the negative particles

The 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 innovations. The 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
The negation used with verbs often consists of circumfixes:4 one particle (neg1)
precedes the verb and another (neg2) follows it. However, neg2 is not used in the

. For a general picture of negation in the Berber languages, letting aside the specic 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 Lafkioui (1996, 2007: 234236; 2011: 6269). For the sake of convenience, the present
paper will deal mostly with verbal negation.
. Circumxes 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 prexes +
suxes) and in the conjugation of verbs (see Footnote 12 below). The sporadic doubling
of clitics before and after the verb could also be viewed as the development of circumxes;
it occurs in Libya (Zuara), Algeria (Mzab, Aurs, Ngoua): Brugnatelli (1993: 234237) and
Morocco (Tarit: Lafkioui 2007: 128).

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 neg1 and use neg2 as the only negator: Sened
(Provotelle 1911: 26) and Awjila (van Putten 2013: 8385, 263). The optional omission of neg1 is also attested in Zuara (Tunisia; Mitchell 2009: 100103) and in
Western Tarifit (Morocco; Lafkioui 2007: 234235).
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; Lafkioui 2007: 175176).6 This redundant way of marking
negative sentences through verbal morphology is also attested in most of the languages that do not use post-verbal negative particles.
.

The preverbal negative particle

The negator that is placed before the verb in some dialects also before nominal
predicates takes many forms, which may easily be taken as cognates: wr/ur, wl/
ul, w/u, wd/ud, etc.7 Other preverbal negators, which do not require neg2 after
the verb, are attested in some Libyan dialects: Sokna (Fezzan) ing (mostly), but
also yul, l, ab; 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 aairs 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 (Galand
2010: 202207).
. Most of these particles have not yet been investigated. With regard to mi in Yefren, see
Brugnatelli (2014: 130). The origin of the preverbal negator ak used in Ghadames as an alternative to wel is puzzling and dicult to account for. Mettouchi (1996:191) considers it to be
a cognate of the most widespread words used for neg2 (discussed below): Il peut arriver que
llment gnralement ralis aprs le verbe prenne la place de ur. Cest le cas pour le parler
de Ghadames (it may happen that the element usually uttered after the verb replaces ur. This
is the case with the variety of Ghadames). A misinterpretation of this statement leads Lucas

 Vermondo Brugnatelli

The most widespread form is wr/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
abekkadsu
lacking sin
sinless, i.e. young child.

This 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 the
initial wa- sounds should rather be regarded as the reflex of a masculine pronominal 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 Ibdsite
text9 containing both particles:
(2)

d
iwalen
g"g" wel yelli
war
elhseqq
pred word=pl in neg 3ms=be=npf 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 sound
we-/u- as the basis of the negative particle, because it is the common element
shared by all the languages (Galand 1994: 171; 2010: 279280). This 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 often used to strengthen other particles. In the Moroccan
dialect 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:
ccifurs-addx akkw ur
issin
zznaqi
driver-this at all neg1 knew=npf streets
this driver does not even know the streets (Galand 2011: 1st part 26).
. The old Berber text referred to in this article is the manuscript Ms.Or. 2550 of the National Library of Tunis. It contains a medieval commentary to Ab nims Mudawwanah, an
important legal work of the Ibdsite branch of Islam.

Berber negation in diachrony

Galands 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 auxiliary verb; this is also the case in many other Berber languages,10 but here the paradigm 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.
2.s.
3.m.s.
3.f.s.
1.p.
2.p.
3.m.p.
3.f.p.

u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u

r
her
yer
her
ner
her
r
r

tuci
tucid
tuci
tuci
tuci
tucim
tucin
tucin

!ad
!ad
!ad
!ad
!ad
!ad
!ad
!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 The previous phase
was probably as follows:
(4)

1.s.
*u r(e ) tuci
!ad
2.s.
*u her(d) (h)tucid !ad
3.m.s. *u yer
(i)tuci !ad
etc.

This discovery, first presented and more thoroughly explained and discussed in
Brugnatelli (2011), reopens, on a new basis, a long-debated issue in Berber historical studies, namely the proposed verbal origin of the negative particle. This
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 Nafs wel yuc we dd-yusu-c he has not yet come, lit. neg1 3ms=aux
neg1 op-3ms=come=pf-neg2. 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: 521524).
. The Berber personal indices may be: prexes (3ms y-, 3fs t-, 1pl n-), suxes (1s - ,
3mpl -n, 3fpl -nt) or circumxes (2s t--d, 2mpl t--m, 2fpl t--mt). In Chenoua dialect,
morphological t usually becomes h.

 Vermondo Brugnatelli

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

What he considered important was the fact that most nouns following the privative war are in the free state instead of the annexed state required by most prepositions.13 The 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 consideration 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 after the negator. As a consequence of this shift, these
morphemes may be seen as the participial mark placed after 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
neg=part 3ms=be tanned=npf

b.

our en
ioufil
neg part 3ms=be tanned=npf
(which is) not tanned (newer and older spelling of the same phrase in
Drouin 1996: 244)

The case of Chenoua negation examined above suggests an earlier scenario somewhere 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 tents de retrouver en war une ancienne 3e pers. masc. sg. de prtrit
dun verbe de qualit aux caractristiques ds maintenant parfaitement dterminables. En ce
cas, la racine serait bilitre, WR ; tar serait d une rfection () et wr, dont le vocalisme
reste obscur, serait sans doute un masc. sg. g (1940: 222). Chaker (1996: 1214) accepts this
theory and assumes that the dierent vocalism of wr and war points to a contrast between
aorist and preterite (i.e. perfective).
. The 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. The best updated description of the phenomenon, with a critical bibliography on the topic, is oered by Galand (2010),
Chapters 4.14.3 and 5.3.

Berber negation in diachrony

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. This verb
still exists as iri in Moroccan Berber (Tashelhit in the South as well as dialects of
central Morocco), and as r or ru in Tuareg. This 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,
Ghadams, 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, Iwas
able to single out a verb il meaning will, want: in some instances, the word yil is
translated by an Arabic gloss yurdu he wants. For instance:
(6)

Arab text:
yurdu iqtits !a mli-ka
Berber translation: yil [Gloss: yurdu] s we"res n wedrim-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
. The post-verbal particle
As has already been pointed out, in most Berber languages the verbal negation consists of two elements, one placed before the verb (neg1) and one after it (neg2).
The 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. The 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 neg1 is usually u/we (seldom wel), but a free
choice exists between w- and wed(d)- before a vowel: w-udife"-c / wedd-udife"-c I did not
come in.
. The spelling is sure, since the word is fully vocalised: the consonant y bears the sign of the
i vowel, and the nal l has a sukn, 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.).

 Vermondo Brugnatelli

to consider neg2 a borrowing from Arabic, but this is not always the case (Brugnatelli 1987a). In reality, the most widely used particles for neg2 may be traced
back to one and the same lexical item, the proto-Berber forms *kyra ~ (h)ra(t)
thing (Kossmann 2013: 332). The original forms have undergone divergent developments in different areas, and neg2 may appear as: kra/kra/cra, ara, ka/ka/ca or k/
k/c.17 Thus, the palatalisation of velars occurring in certain Berber varieties (above
all in the so-called Zanata dialects), has led to a form of neg2 comparable to the
corresponding Arabic morphemes (ay, i or from the classic word ay thing).18
.. Jespersen cycle
The frequent usage of circumfixes in Berber negation suggests that its historical
development may be described in terms of the so-called Jespersen cycle, a process through which many world languages renew their negative structures by adding redundant elements that over time become part of the standard negation.
This process is customarily represented as comprising three main stages:
Stage I = only preverbal negator (neg1 );
Stage II = twofold negator, preverbal and post-verbal (neg1 neg2);
Stage III = only post-verbal negator ( neg2)

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: 7585).
The similarity between the negative structures of North-African modern
Arabic dialects and those of Berber has prompted scholars to explore the question of the origin of discontinuous morphemes within the framework of linguistic
interference:
The 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 neg2 will not be examined here. Kossmann (2013: 332) suggests
that ani, used in Eastern Kabylia (Algeria), is derived from ani where. Lafkioui (2013a and
2013b) examines the Rian neg2 bu, which has also spread to the neighbouring Arabic dialects. Another particle attested in Eastern Kabylia is ula (Rabhi 1992 and 1996).
. Kossmann (2013: 333) set up a table summarizing the forms of neg2 in the principal
Berber varieties and regrouping them into three columns according to what he considers
surely Berber, surely Arabic and ambiguous.

Berber negation in diachrony

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 Lafkioui 2013a for a critical discussion of Lucas hypothesis). The main reason put forward concerns the areal distribution, consistent
with a gradual spread westwards and southwards of the cycle in the local contact 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 the
other Berber languages (Brugnatelli 1987b). Furthermore, the sporadic presence
of neg2 in Ancient Ibds Berber, in both a more archaic form (-cra) and a phonetically reduced one (-c) seems consistent with viewing it as an ancient construction
that is losing ground, rather than as a newly acquired innovation. The influence
of Arabic might be seen, rather, as a stimulus to preserve neg2 in the Berber
varieties in which it had become similar to the Arabic equivalent, while most of
the so-called kem dialects, where neg2 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 diffusion of negative stems in all the verbal systems. For a more in-depth look at this
subject, see 2 below.
.. Kabyle neg2 ara
The Kabyle particle ara has attracted the attention of researchers because it is
homophonous with another particle ara, which is the aorist particle used in relatives 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 neg2 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 languages; furthermore, the paper does not examine comparative data from other
Berber varieties.

. A dierent opinion on the origin of this particle is expressed by Chaker (1983: 121): as
a matter of fact, ara is the amalgam of ay this + ad non-real (ara est en fait lamalgame de
ay ce + ad non-rel) (see also ibid. 159).

 Vermondo Brugnatelli

As a matter of fact, a specific aorist particle that is used in relatives and whinterrogatives 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 Ibdsite regions (Tunisia/
Libya) (9).
(7)

Figuig: wi stt ala nawey?

who her ala take=aor=part
who will marry her? (Kossmann 1997: 268)

(8)

Jerba w ala s
nuc
who ala to him give=aor=part
who will give him (Brugnatelli 2011: 529)

(9)

Ibdsite

w ala nzsem
lxemr
who ala press=aor=part wine
whoever will produce wine (f. 398a, l. 12)

The similarity of forms and functions makes it probable that ala and Kabyle ara
are cognate. The 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 The Medieval Berber evidence is important not only
because it shows that this particle is old (while Mettouchis theory frames it as a
recent development), but also because it makes clear that it has nothing to do with
neg2, attested as c or cra.21
Most probably, another cognate is the particle la of Zuara (Libya), which is a
connective (relateur: Galand 2005: 192193) introducing a relative that may be
either verbal or verbless:
(10)

wuh
la yemmut
that one la 3ms=die=pf
the one who is dead
kne la d_tametstsut
me la pred_woman
I, who am a woman

. Kabyle ara has several phonetic variants: a!a, !a, a"a, aa, ara. Other possible cognates
(such as Gourara !a or Mzab a!a) are discussed in Brugnatelli (2011: 529530).
. In the Medieval text, cra is also used as an indenite pronoun in non-negative expressions, such as cra n some of , a little of , in the same way as the Kabyle kra.

Berber negation in diachrony

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

similarly to ala in Figuig (12) and Old Ibds Berber (13):
(11)

be!d la kemmlnet
cchi
after la 3fpl=finish=pf tea
after they had finished tea (Mitchell 2009: 274)

(12)

qbel
ala idjiwen
before ala 3ms=be sated=pf
before he is sated (Kossmann 1997: 330)22

(13)

qabbel ala yeg#

ad$in
before ala 3ms=do=aor this
before he does this (f. 310a, l.11)23

At this early stage of the language, the particle was also used in cleft sentences, as
in the following example:
(14)

d
elqimet$ en yelemlemen g# essuq ala yuc
pred price of y.
in market ala 3ms=give=aor
it is the market price of y.-s [unknown word] that he will give (f. 403b, l. 8)

The fact that all these particles are strongly connected with relatives raises the
question of a possible link with the Tuareg particle r, 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-mentioned
term: i-ir, i-ir un quil (on) veut , i.e. a pronoun i (pronom dappui) followed
by the verb r 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 grammatical 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 neg2 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 prverbe prospectif en attraction, Kossmann 1997: 442).
. Interestingly, the same construction b %d la aprs que after (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 b %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).

 Vermondo Brugnatelli

. The 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 yetstses
still
3ms=sleep=pf
he is still sleeping

b.

mazal yetstsis
still
3ms=sleep=npf
he is not yet sleeping

The 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 common form. This 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.
2.
3.

vowel fronting (a > /i and > e/)

shortening of the first vowel
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
ikrs
ilsa
ibber

neg. perfect
ikrs
ils
=

imperfect
ikrrs
ilss
itbr

neg. imperfect
ikerres
knot
iless
wear
iteberi
show off

. For the changes in vocalism of the perfective in the negative form as well as in the socalled resultative, see Brugnatelli (2005: 376378).

Berber negation in diachrony

b.

Jerba
yezswa yezswi izsugga yezsuggi go down
yebbes yebbis yetbessa yetbessi be switched off
yewet! =
yeat!
yeit! 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 influence of a suffixed negative particle. This would account for the shortening of the
beginning vowels and the lengthening of the final ones (via a left-to-right stress
shift) 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 (Dakhla
Oasis), in which negative verbal forms have arisen from positive ones, displaying
a vocalic difference most likely provoked by consonant clustering and heavy syllable formation, due to the affixation of neg2 (Woidich 199597: 1415):
(17)

Western dialects: i "go#m > ma-ti "ga#m- do not speak Cairene!

Central dialects: si "a#n > ma-si "in-/ma-si "e#n- 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 (neg1 by-himneg2 = 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 phenomenon, some scholars still share the opinion put forward by Picard (1957) that
the negative perfective represents a sort of intensive form of perfective (prtrit
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
neg2. 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 formed
by 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 tre employe dans des environnements
forte modalisation: noncs ngatifs (interdiction), de souhait, dhypothse irrelle, etc.

 Vermondo Brugnatelli

The 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; Lafkioui 2013a: 87). The fact that such forms
probably derived from elements placed towards the right end of the verbal complex strengthens the hypothesis that Berber achieved Stage II of the Jespersen cycle
in very ancient times, earlier than any contact with Arabic. The actual shape of the
added element is difficult to reconstruct. It is even possible that the attested forms
of neg2 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 find similar phenomena in many other
world languages, such as the Old Irish genitive maicc (from macc son), in which
a final -i, preserved in Ogam maqqi, had completely disappeared leaving only a
phonetic vestige in the palatalisation of the final consonant, or the well-known
phenomenon of Umlaut in German, in which final vowels undergo fronting under
the influence of i-endings that have now disappeared.

Conclusion

The 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 cycles multiple outcomes.
In particular, a first key observation is that Berber, with its widespread use of
two concatenative negators (neg1, neg2) 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 (Lafkioui 2013a: 87), a feature first 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 modifications triggered by a post-verbal negator should be viewed as a sixth source of new
(non affixal) negators, in addition to those already known, which are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

a word expressing minimal value: French pas (not even a) step;

a negative word: English not, which originally meant nothing;
an emphatic element: such as French du tout or English at all;
a particle of negative answer: Brazilian Portuguese na;
repetition of the first negator: Brabantian nie.

Across the vast area in which Berber is spoken, all possible stages of the cycle
may be found (neg1 V; neg1 V neg2; V neg2), although the relative chronology of
the changes has not yet been firmly established.

Berber negation in diachrony

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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