On Sat, 29 May 2004 09:52:22 +0000, tgpedersen
<
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>Using the proposed historic developments given by Trask in "History
>of Basque", I wondered if Basque <ibai> "river" and <behe>, <bei>,
><be>, <pe> "below" would been in Pre-Basque *iban and *beni (*bene?),
>respectively (or *ipan, *peni?). Miguel?
*iban would have given *iban, and *beni would have given
*mehi (cf. *bini > mihi, mi~, min "tongue", *bene > mehe, me
"slender, thin", *bin > min "pain"). Neither <ibai> nor
<behe> show nasalization in the dialects that still have it
(e.g. Zuberoan), and the fact that /b/ didn't develop into
/m/ also speaks against the presence of /n/ in the
proto-form of these words.
The oldest attested forms of ibai "river" are hibaie-a
(def.) and hibaia (indef.), pointing to *hibaiV (V=a or e).
>If so, I would consider matching Basque <ipili>, <ipini> "be busy
>with sth." with Latin <opulentia>, ON afl "harvest"
No such verb. Ipini means "to put", and there is no *ipili.
Perhaps you mean <ibili> "to walk around", caus. <erabili>
"to make go, to use, to wear".
The root of the verb <ibili> (*e-bil-i) is clearly *bil
"round" (e.g. gurpil "wheel" < *gurd-bil "wagon + BIL").
The root of <ipini> and its variants such as <ibeni>,
<imini> is more difficult to pin down. My guess is that
i-pin-i represents *e-b(V)hin-i, while i-ben-i, with i-
pointing to a high vowel in the root, is *e-beh(i)n-i or
*e-bain-. <imini> is straightforward from *e-bin-i. If we
combine all these, we get a possible root *-behin- or
*-bahin-, where /h/ can be read as the hiatus left by the
loss of an earlier consonant (not /n/).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...