On Wed, 09 Oct 2002 12:12:34 -0000, "Richard Wordingham"
<
richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>I included /h/ because it occurred to me that whatever made /k/
>popular might also make /h/ popular, rather than because I was
>thinking /k/ > /h/. The affricates I encountered were voiceless, so
>I do not think reinforced glides are a frequent origin. Coronal
>stops are indeed a possible source. What does Miguel reckon for
>Basque txakur?
txakur is simply the diminutive of zakur (/sakurr/) "big dog". Initials in
Basque are peculiar, considering that of the 15 ~ 16 consonants reconstructed
for Pre-Basque ( = Basque ca. 2000 years ago):
lenis: b d g z s n l r
fortis: (p) t k tz ts N L R
, only b-, g-, z-, s-, n-, l- can occur in initial position, and, moreover, n-,
l-, s- ( = /s'/, apical s) are rare. The vast majority of words start with a
vowel. Most consonant-initial words start with b-, g- or z- (= laminal s-). If
we go beyond Pre-Basque (Mitxelena-Trask reconstruction) to my personal and
tentative reconstructions, I would say that a word zakuR must be derived from
either **saggur or **daggur (and if final -R has replaced original *-r in this
word, we can add **saggun, **daggun, **saggud or **daggud), i.e. {sd}aggu{rdn}.
Another Basque word for "dog" is (h)or (with rare final -r, nor -rr), for which
the possibilities are almost endless: **{ptkh0ybwm}{o,aw}{dn} [**b-,**w-,**m- >
**b- only if vowel was **o, because *bo- > o-]. Reconstructing **kawn, for
instance, is only one of many possibilities.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...