Re: [tied] Re: Foot/below

On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 12:24:51 +0000, tgpedersen
<tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>> In most dialects, the word is <behe> (<bee>, <be>), and the
>> reduction to -pe (< -bhe < -behe), besides -be, occurred in
>> suffixal position only. It's indeed possible that the
>> independent word pe (AN, R, Z) was backformed after the
>> suffixal form.
>
>
>Since I assume anyway that the hypothetical donor language had a
>Verner-like(?) alternation p/b (p/bH?), it might have had a root
>*poin-/*b(H)oin- "foot, leg"
>
>(loan in) Pre-pre-Basque *poin- > Basque oin "foot"

The combining form of "foot" is orh-, which means that the
simplex was *on(h)i (> o~(h)i > *oi~ > oin). The combining
form is regular: -i is dropped, and -n becomes -r- (onhi ->
onh- > orh-).

>(zero-grade(?) loan in) Pre-pre-Basque *binV- > Basque behe

*bene would have given mehe (no asterisk, the word means
"thin, lean"), not behe. A medial consonant was lost in
behe, bit it wasn't */n/.

>> In any case, the word did not originally start with *p-, but
>> with b-, and a derivation from Latin/Romance pedem/*pEde is
>> impossible (that would have given Basque *bede, not behe).
>
>In that case, the Galician/Portuguese constructions might be
>substratal

Why? They are completely normal Romance constructions (al
pie de la letra, au pied de la lettre, etc). I can see
nothing "substratal" about any of it.

>Is -tik (petik) a Basque case suffix?

Yes, the ablative. It's likely to be a special development
(generalized from stems ending in -C-) of an earlier *-dik
(now the partitive -rik).

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