[tied] Re: Saint

From: tgpedersen
Message: 23456
Date: 2003-06-18

--- 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