Re: basque m

Torsten,

is it your doing that a little animated bat comes up on the Windows
notification of NEW MAIL from you - or is it Arnaud?

Patrick

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 11:46 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: basque m


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
>
> At 11:09:52 AM on Sunday, February 17, 2008, fournet.arnaud
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > I find myself
> > mamur-tu "to chew"
> > Cf. Arabic m_t?_q "to chew"
>
> [...]
>
> > Obviously mamur has kept -m-
>
> Or been borrowed. I don't claim to know anything about
> about the history of Basque beyond the odds and ends that I
> picked up from Larry Trask's posts to various places over
> the years, but Spanish <mamar> 'to suck; to cram and devour
> (victuals)' and <mamullar> 'to eat or chew as if sucking'
> are at least suggestive.

Re the infinitive sufix -tu
Trask: Ther Basque Language, pp. 213-214
"
The participial formation in -i is no longer productive. For many
centuries, the function of -i has been assumed by a new suffix -tu.
This is of Latin origin: Basque borrowed verbs from Latin in the form
of their perfective participles, such as aditu 'hear, understand' <
auditu and jostatu 'play' < iuxtatu. Romance verbs have continued to
be borrowed with the same suffix: pentsatu 'think' < Sp pensar,
sentitu 'feel' < Sp sentir, erreibindikatu 'claim' < Sp reivindicar.
In spite of occasional exceptions like sentitu, there has long been a
marked tendency to generalize the form -atu, as in bedeinkatu 'bless'
(< *benedikatu), from Lat benedicere, participle benediktu, and
eskribatu 'write' < Sp escribir. This new suffix is used to form
participles of verbs from native materials, as in aberastu 'get rich'
(replacing earlier aberratsi), from aberats 'rich', and ilundu 'get
dark', from ilun 'dark'. As can be seen, verbs in -tu lack the prefix *e-.
A handful of seemingly ancient verbs, all of them with monosyllabic
stems, and all of them lacking the ancient prefix *e-, are found
everywhere with participles in -tu: hartu 'take', sartu 'enter', galdu
'lose', saldu 'sell', kendu 'remove', lortu 'achieve', lotu 'tie
(up)', bildu 'gather, collect', sortu 'be born', piztu 'kindle,
light', heldu 'ripen, mature; arrive'. Only a few of these have
possible sources: saldu 'sell' is perhaps derived from sari 'price' (<
*sali?), and piztu 'kindle' is probably from bizi 'alive', with
voicing assimilation. The verb kendu 'remove' is exceptionally
attested as ekendu in LN, apparently with the prefix *e-; this is
mysterious.
In a few cases verbs in -i have been transferred into the -tu class:
older iratzarri 'awaken' is now iratzartu in places (Leizarraga uses
iratzarri only as an adjective 'awake'); older ahantzi 'forget',
preserved in the north, is anztu in old B G and aztu today; older
bihurri 'twist' is now bihurtu almost everywhere (though bihurri
survives as an adjective meaning 'twisted'); common itzali 'obscure,
eclipse' is itzaldu in places; hautsi 'break' is just as often haustu;
older irakurri 'read' is irakurtu in some northern varieties. The word
neurri is today only a noun meaning 'measure', but it is attested once
in Axular as an adjective meaning 'which fits perfectly' (i.e.,
'measured'), while the verb 'measure' is neurtu. The form ezagun is
now everywhere an adjective 'familiar', while ezagatu is the verb
meaning 'know' (a person). And even izan 'be' is izandu or izatu in a
few central varieties.
"


Torsten