On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 05:45:55 +0200 (MET DST), Harald Hammarstrom
<
haha2581@...> wrote:
>> This is also found in Castilian and has traditionally been taken as
>> evidence of Basque substrate in both Gascon and Castilian. The
>> Vasconist R.L [Larry] Trask has recently argued forcefully against
>> this, at least where it concerns Castilian (see: "The History of
>> Basque pp. 424-429). He gives 7 arguments against the Basque
>> substrate theory:
>
>I recall he doesn't address the ser/estar distinction in castilian,
>could that possibly be a basque or other influence ?
pp. 292-293: <izan> "to be" == Sp. <ser>, <egon> "to be" == Sp.
<estar>. The use in Southern Basque is exactly as in Spanish, but in
Northern Basque <egon> is rarely used (only with animate subject and
locative/comitative complement), <izan> being commonly used in all
circumstances. This suggests that the use in Southern Basque is a
calque on Castilian (as it surely is in Southern Basque <eduki> "to
have" == Sp. <tener> vs. *<edun> == Sp. <haber>). Note that <estar>
is also used in Catalan besides <ésser> (although under more
restricted circumstances than in Castilian), even though no Basque
substrate can be posited for (at least Eastern) Catalonia.
The development "to stand" -> "to be" (just like "to sit" -> "to be",
as in Sp. <ser> < SEDERE) is something that was latent in Vulgar
Latin, and does not require Basque substrate to explain it. In fact,
these are common developments in general: PIE *h1es- "to be" is bound
to have some relation to PIE *h1e(:)s- "to sit", and my personal
theory is that Basque <egon> "to be" [see above] and <etzan> "to lie
(down)" share part of their paradigm:
EGON (to remain, to be)
(present) (past)
na-go nen-go-en
ha-go hen-go-en
da-go ze-go-en
ga-u-de < ga-go-de geunden < gene-go-de-n
za-u-de < za-go-de zeunden < zene-go-de-n
da-u-de < da-go-de zeuden < ze-go-de-n
The plural morpheme is *-de, which is highly irregular, as the
absolutive plural suffix is usually *-z, *-(t)za or *-z-ki, while *-de
is otherwise an exclusively ergative plural suffix.
The missing plural forms of EGON resurface in the paradigm of ETZAN:
ETZAN (to lie)
(present) (past)
na-tza nen-tza-n
ha-tza hen-tza-n
da-tza ze-tza-n
gautza < ga-go-tza geuntzan < gene-go-tza-n
zautza < za-go-tza zeuntzan < zene-go-tza-n
dautza < da-go-tza zeutzan < ze-go-tza-n
(The regular plurals of ETZAN should have been: ga-tza-tza ~ ga-tza-z
etc.)