On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:48:04 -0700 (PDT), Rick McCallister
<
gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>I agree moko can't be the original form but is there a
>*boko or something like that?
There is Roncalese boxo "muzzle for calfs".
A development b- > m- in the absence of a following -n-
would be, as Trask says, irregular, but it is attested in
words like Lat. BACILLA > makila "stick".
>In English and Spanish there are expressive terms for
>"face" but they all have meanings
>e.g. English "mug" Spanish "jeta" et al. can be
>metaphorically or otherwise related
In Basque, words of expressive origin can usually be
recognized by the phonotactics alone. Symptoms include:
1) initial p-, t-, k-, d-, m-;
2) medial geminates (-p-, -t-, -k-);
3) palatalization (-x-, -tx-, -tt-);
3) strange variant forms (like in this case moko ~ mosko)
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...