Re: potto

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" wrote:

>
> You said at one point d was borrowed as l and p was borrowed as l.
> Thus, pesebre > lizifru or sim. I get that. Now, how do you have
> lizifru > trisipu without l > t (or *lizipru > *lrizipu > *trizipu
> etc., or *lizipru > *tizipru > *trizipu etc., or whatever).
>
> > Not exactly. We've got *prisipu > trisipu > *drisipu > lizifru. I
> > *never* meant p- > l- was a single-step shift like d- > l-.
>
> Then why did only one p turn to t? Your other ex. don't have pr-,
> so the env. isn't the reason?
>
> > If you mean the shift is a condicioned one, then the answer is no.
>
> Then is it random or opt.?
>

I'd rather say sporadic, because it's less frequent than d- > l-.
There's even one example of m- > l- in merma > lerma.

> > There're other examples of p-/b- > l- such as pedania > ledania,

banca >

> > lanka.
>
> Yes, I believe it happened (opt.) by p >> pF or pB (since there were

no plain p in Bq.) with B > r > l, or sim. What do you believe?

>

I suppose this /r/ is an alveolar voiced fricative or approximate akin
to /D/, so /D/ > /r/ is straightforward. In turn, /r/ would collapse to
a lateral at word-initial but to a tap rhotic between vowels. This would
explain e.g. regional Spanish zarandilla 'lizard' from an earlier
*(t)sapandilla > Sp. sabandija 'creepy-crawly', which I link to sapo
(Aragonese zapo, Bq. (z)apo) 'toad', a Wanderwort of Semitic origin
(*s^abb- 'a k. of lizard'). The second member is a double diminutive
*-and-illa also found in Basque sugandilla 'lizard' (whose first member
is suge 'snake'), from which some linguists have tried to derive
zarandilla.

> In "*prisipu > trisipu > *drisipu > lizifru", what are the stages in
> regard to metathesis? Since dr > lr > l-r is impossible or "highly
> unlikely" to you, why did metathesis take place? You first said all
> these were << pesebre, so did you first think it was p-r- > pr-0-

met.?

>
> > Since the Latin form has pr-, lizifru could actually derive from a
> > methatesized form *pisipru akin to Spanish pesebre < *pesepre <
> > *presepe.
>
> I know ONE is methatesized (which depends on when/where borrowed),

but that's the only dif. in env.; they're not from 2 kinds of Bq.

>

I don't like abbr., you know, but lizifru is structurally (although not
phonetically) identical to Spanish pesebre (metathesized), while trisipu
is akin to Aragonese presepe (non-metathesized). So the latter looks
like a rather undigested loanword from Pyrenaic Romance.