On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 13:58:19 +0000, tgpedersen
<
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>> >Vennemann proposes a Proto-Vasconic *grandi > (h)andi was loaned
>into
>> >Romance (grand-) and Germanic (great, gross-).
>>
>> That's completely impossible.
>
>But, but! Vennemann has writen a long, fine article about it! Which
>part is impossible, the PVasc. > Basque or the PVasc. > Latin /
>Germanic?
PVasc > Basque. Vennemann, if I recall, argues that gr-
becomes r- (elimination of initial clusters) and then r- > 0
(elimination of initial r-).
Of course it's true that Basque does not allow initial
clusters, nor initial r-. But the way Basque deals with
that in the cases of gr- and r- is by (1) inserting a vowel
(Lat. granu > Bq. garau), and (2) prefixing a vowel (Lat.
rege(m) > Bq. errege). Nothing we know about Basque
indicates that /g/ was ever deleted in the cluster /gr-/,
nor that /r-/ was ever deleted when word-initial.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...