Re: Stacking up on standard works

At 4:51:22 AM on Monday, April 2, 2012, Tavi wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <bm.brian@...> wrote:

>>> PNC *=unddzE 'to hide, to steal, to conceal' (= stands for
>>> a class-prefix)
>>> Paleo-Basque *bints (u > i by delabialization)
>>> Basque mintz (B, G, HN, S, R) 'membrane, film', (B) 'milk
>>> cream', (HN) 'wheat grain with husk', mintzi (R)
>>> 'membrane, film' Spanish binza, Aragonese binza, bienza
>>> 'membrane, film; peritoneum'

>> Trask's Etymological Dictionary of Basque, left
>> incomplete at his death, makes Basque <mintz> 'membrane;
>> hymen; skin' a borrowing from Romance, probably from
>> Aragonese <binça> 'membrane'. That rather tends to cast
>> doubt on a pre-Basque *bints.

> Actually it's the Romance word which was borrowed from
> Paleo-Basque and not other way around. Trask was wrong
> about this.

I know that Larry Trask was (a) one of the foremost experts
on Basque and (b) a competent historical linguist. If you
have any competence as a historical linguist, you're going
out of your way to hide it in your posts here. I have no
reason whatsoever to prefer your unsupported assertion to
his.

>>> PNC *bo:nddz(w)V 'a k. of vessel'
>>> Paleo-Basque *bontsi
>>> Basque ontzi 'ship', (B, G, HN, S, R) 'vessel', untzi
>>> (Bazt, L, LN, Z) 'ship; vessel', (L, LN) 'stomach', unzi
>>> (LN) 'ship'

>> Pre-Basque */b/ in */bVn/ almost invariably became /m/; if
>> <ontzi> 'container, vessel' is from *bontsi, why does it not
>> appear in at least some dialects as **montzi?

> Because the labial /b/ is regularly lost before /o/. You
> can find also this in Trask's.

Congratulations: you got it right.

>> For that matter, why does it consistently have the wrong
>> sibilant affricate?

> In case you didn't know, Basque has no voiced fricatives.

I know precisely what is meant by /z/ and /tz/ in a Basque
context.

> Basque <z, tz> respectively denote the lamino-alveolar
> fricative and affricate, which contrast with the
> apico-alveolar <s, ts>.

Exactly. So why does <ontzi> have the laminal affricate, if
you're postulating the apical affricate for pre-Basque?

Brian