Re: [tied] Re: Rom. TâTã (breast)

On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 12:42:23 +0000, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>1. In a very early loan, initial t- would subsequently be lost in
>Basque.

Too early for Latin, I think.

>2. In later loans, Latin t- is borrowed as d-, and thus, unless
>there is a problem with the "h", _dithi_ is fine.

<dithi> suggests accentuation on the second syllable, which isn't quite
what one would expect if it were a borrowing from Latin, but Basque
accentuation is still somewhat of a mystery, so an accent shift within
Basque cannot be excluded.

>3. Later still, Latin *ti(:)ttia has become titsa or tetsa. Could
>that be borrowed as _titi_? I presumed not.

Indeed.

>Are you saying that there a window between stages 2 and 3 in which
>*ti(:)ttia could be borrowed as _titi_?

It's more a question of assimilation: if a voiceless consonant follows
(especially a geminated one as in this case), we can expect the initial to
vary between voiced and voiceless. I'll try to look up the details later.



=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...