Re: [tied] Water, pre/postpositions, somewhat OT

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 09:56:16 +0000, tgpedersen
<tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>> >I recognize that line of reasoning wrt. /e/ > /i/ in the verbal
>> >prefixes from Trask. Could the same rule have applied also on
>nouns,
>>
>> Apparently not.
>
>You have no way of knowing that.
>You reconstruct /e/ > /i/ for the verbal prefix because you know
>1) it's a prefix
>2) in the same place a majority of verbs have /e/

And

3) if the root contains a high vowel (i, u), and there is a
third syllable, the prefix becomes i-.

>Therefore it's natural to try to seek a common origin for both /i-/
>and /e-/ in verbs.
>The same situation doesn't apply in nouns. Therefore if there had
>been a rule /e/ > /i/ in nouns, we wouldnt know.

Actually, it *does* happen in nouns. I'd forgotten about
the additional requirement of a third syllable. See Trask,
p. 154: ipizpiku "bishop", tipula "onion", iguzki (besides
standard eguzki "sun"). It doesn't happen in bisyllabic
verbs or nouns (egin, egun, etc.).

>> >so that ibai < *ebai (there's nothing to stop one from assuming a
>> >lost h- in all verbs)?
>>
>
>> What do you mean?
>>
>
>If I were to claim that <ibai> was related to one the other words
>that came up in the discussion, the initial h- of the oldest
>documented form would be a problem. I'd have to postulate in initial
>h- for the other words as well.

h- is never a problem in Basque. It's presence or not has
little to do with the etymology, only with the Pre-Baque
accent.

>I notice that you yourself
>http://makeashorterlink.com/?J5F725478
>have proposed that the prefix /e-/ or /i-/ derives from /He-/ in your
>Pre-Pre-Basque. I assume /H/ is some laryngeal?

It's *p-, *t-, *k-, *h- or *0-.

>It might have left
>the initial /h/ in the oldest forms of <ibai>.

So you're claiming <ibai> is from a verbal root? It can't
be: the root would have to be *ba or *baC (with a consonant
that isn't *n, *l, *r, *s or *z), but in a form *e-ba(C)-i,
the *e- would not have turned into i-. That means the i-
simply part of the root, as it is in the variant <ibarr>.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...