Re: Is Basque IE?

From: Etherman23
Message: 71310
Date: 2013-09-14

I'm really starting to hate this new format. 


Anyway, the sound law *sw > b struck me as odd at first but if it went like **sw > *w > b  then it's very reasonable. However, I don't know if such a sequence would fit in with the rest of the proposed changes. 



--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <cybalist@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

5.  Bq. _ar_ 'male'; PIE *h2/4nĂ©:r 'man, hero'.  If _ar_ indeed reflected *anar as you claim, the northern form would be *ahar, and in fact under #166 you refer northern _zahar_ 'old' (southern _zar_) to *zanar.  But then you say *-ar in *zanar may be identical to _ar_ 'man, male', whose protoform you insist is *anar, so the REAL protoform of _zahar_ must be *zananar.
>
[Tavi]
Actually, Basque zahar 'old' does NOT have a medial nasal nor it contains ar 'male', whose Iberian counterparts are respectively sakar, tar. The protoform *anar actually corresponds to Basque ar, a~ar 'worm'.
>
[DGK]
That means BOTH Gianfranco's #5 and #166 are unjustifiable on the Basque side.

[Tavi]
Please notice /r/ is these words is a trill rhotic, which is a different phoneme than the tap rhotic /R/ in e.g. bero /beRo/.

[DGK]
In my personal notes I follow Alessio and a few others in writing such words with -r' when they show the trill with vocalic suffixes, like _arra_ 'the male'.  The handbooks cite only pronouns, some recently borrowed nouns, and the native nouns _hor_ 'dog', _ur_ 'water', and _zur_ 'wood' as Basque words ending in weak -r (i.e. an underlying tap rhotic).