On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 10:48:58 +0000, tgpedersen <
tgpedersen@...>
wrote:
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> In any case, Basque <saindu> must fo back to an early Romance form
>> *sañtu or *sañto, more specifially a Romance with apical /s/ (which occurs
>> in a broad band along the Cantabrian coast, the Pyrinees and a bit into
>> France, roughly Galician/Northern Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Northern
>> Castilian, Gascon, Northern Catalan and Southern Languedocian).
>
>...thus all the way to Portuguese, which has -o > -u and -one > õi.
>Coincidence?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is that we should distinguish between three separate
phenomena:
1) replacement of laminal /s/ by apical /s'/
2) loss of intervocalic /n/
3a) reduction of unstressed /o/ to /u/
3b) reduction of final /o/ to /u/
Phenomenon (1) occurs in the broad band I mentioned. It is probably no
coincidence that this happened in the neighbourhood of a pre-Latin language
(Basque) that distinguishes /s/ from /s'/ phonemically. However, precisely
because of this, Basque itself has *not* replaced laminal <z> with apical
<s>, except in the Bizkaian dialect, where this happened under Romance
(Castilian) influence [Bizkaian has merged <z> and <s> as apical <s> (=
Castlian <s>), while it has merged <tz> and <ts> as laminal <tz> (= Old
Castilian <ç>, modern interdental /T/)].
Phenomenon (2) occurs in Galician/Portuguese, Basque, and Gascon. It does
not occur in the area between Galician and Basque, nor does it occur
further east. It seems then that the Galaico-Portuguese and Basque-Gascon
phenomena are not related.
Phenomenon (3b) is not applicable to Catalan, Gascon and Occitan, where -o
went to zero a long time ago. Of the languages that maintained /-o/,
Galaico-Portuguese and Astur-Leonese have /-u/, because they have reduction
of unstressed /o/ to /u/ in general (as do, for instance, Romanian and
Bulgarian). Neither Castilian, nor Basque, nor West-Catalan/Valencian
reduce /o/ to /u/. East-Catalan/Balearic does have /u/ for unstressed /o/,
as do Gascon and Occitan. Gascon, Occitan and Rossellonese (North Catalan)
also close all stressed closed /o/'s to /u/ (but not their open /O/'s).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...