[tied] Re: Saint

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

> 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).

>

It seems in your argument you are using 'unrelated' for 'non-
contiguous'. Have you ruled out a conservative spread from Castillian
in Cantabria? Or tried to see the two areas as relic islands?

Torsten