From: dgkilday57
Message: 67960
Date: 2011-08-05
>Yes. Unfortunately mere minutes remained in my computer session, so I lacked time to look up the forms. A lame excuse indeed, but I have no home-based Internet and must use public facilities.
> ________________________________
> From: dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 5:38 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: floor
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" <oalexandre@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Alternatively, we could follow Kuhn and propose the existence of
> > > > > not one but two substrate layers for Germanic in the NWBlock
> > > > > area:
> > > > >
> > > > > 1 a non-IE language, called the ar-/ur-language by Kuhn
> > > > >
> > > > > 2 an IE language, spoken but for a short time before Germanic
> > > > > took over
> > > > >
> > > > > and assign the Germanic-like NWBlock roots to the latter, eg
> > > > > Meid's German flur, English floor, NWB placename Plore, OI lar
> > > > > "field"
> > > > >
> > > > MatasoviÃâ¡ reconstructs Proto-Celtic *fla:ro- 'floor', and he
> > > > quotes Old Irish lár 'ground, surface, middle', although the
> > > > semantic shift to 'field' is straightforward (cfr. Basque larre
> > > > 'meadow', probably a Celtic loanword).
> > >
> > > Why would Celtic *(f)la:rom, if borrowed into Basque, be reflected
> > > as <larre> rather than *laro?
> > >
> >
> > Trask:
> > The History of Basque
> >
> > p. 144
> > '3.7 RHOTICS
> > In all likelihood, Pre-Basque R and r were a trill and a tap, respectively, and they probably contrasted only between vowels. Elsewhere the contrast was neutralized (though old Z[uberoan] exhibited a contrast between the two rhotics before another consonant). In modern varieties, the result of the neutralization is usually a trill, at least in careful speech, even in Romance loans like brontze 'bronze' and krabelin 'carnation', but there is evidence, as we shall see, that this may not always have been so.'
> >
> > p. 169
> > '3.15 TREATMENT OF LOAN WORDS FROM LATIN AND EARLY ROMANCE
> > Latin nouns are usually borrowed in their accusative forms:
> > ahate 'duck' < anate,
> > ohore 'honour' < honore,
> > bake 'peace' < pace,
> > ingude 'anvil' < incude,
> > errege 'king' < rege,
> > lore 'flower' < flore.
> > But there are a few instances of borrowed nominatives:
> > gorputz 'body' < corpus,
>
> Latin <corpus> is neuter, so there is no reason to suppose that <gorputz> was not borrowed from the accusative.
>
> > lapitz 'slate' < lapis 'stone',
>
> Possibly borrowed from Romance rather than Latin; cf. Spanish <lapiz> 'pencil'.
> *****R Most definitely from Romance, in Old Spanish <lapiz> was pronounced /lapits/
>
> > maizter 'master shepherd' < magister,
>
> Again, possibly borrowed from Romance; cf. Old French <maistre>.
>
> ***R But Basque was not in contact with Old French --try Old Gascon, Old Catalan, Old Aragonese
> > apaez (and variants) 'priest' < abbas 'abbot'.With this particular word, I suspect the most common usage was in the confessional ritual 'Forgive me Father, for I have sinned ... blah, blah, blah'. That would explain why the vocative form trumped the accusative.
>
> Used primarily as a title, and probably actually borrowed from the form of address, i.e. vocative.
> > Adjectives are borrowed in the accusative singular masculine/neuter:Unlike some scholars, I do not regard this as a Whalenesque "optional soundlaw". I regard the Basque borrowings with /m/ from Latin /b/ as characterizing a particular temporal stratum. I provided some details in discussion with Tavi, who refuses to look at the REW.
> > ziku 'dry' < siccu,
> > xahu 'clean' < sanu 'healthy'.
> > A rare nominative is
> > bortitz 'strong, violent' < fortis.'
>
> Possibly borrowed from <Fortis> used effectively as a cognomen. I suspect that <malmutz> 'sly' was similarly borrowed from the cognomen <Balbus>, during the time when Late Latin /b/ was approximated by Old Basque /mb/, later reduced to /mm/ and then /m/.
> ***R The b/m dichotomy is common in Ibero-Romance
> > No particular mention of the treatment of Latin -r- or -rr-.Enough to posit a West Mediterranean *larr-. I am trying to see whether West Germanic 'lark' can be referred to a NWB compound based on this substratal word.
> >
> > [snipped for brevity]
> >
> > Nbf. larra-.
>
> This is the old compounding form, no longer productive, showing Minor Apocope (cf. <etxaburu> etc.) which we find in the surname Larramendi 'Meadow Mountain'. If a mountain was characterized by meadows, obviously they were montane meadows, so it is difficult to believe that a Celtic word for 'level surface, floor' was borrowed to indicate them. Basque <lau> was borrowed from Latin <pla:num> and it retains the original sense 'plain, plane, flat surface'.
>
> > ç vmtl. fz.;
> > aus afz. larris (mlat. larricium) leeres, unangebautes Feld,
> > wohl aus
> > ndl. laar leer, bezw. laer unangebautes Feld
> > (mndl. laar Waldlichtung).'
> >
> > This raises many questions.
> >
> > It seems Basque -r- and -rr- correspond to the the similar situation in Spanish. But Old French supposed had only one rhotic. Perhaps Löplmann's connection with Dutch laar (loan from Celtic?) is fanciful.
>
> Yes, I would say fanciful. In several words Basque -rr- seems to have originated from *-rd-. The most obvious is <ezker> (with article <ezkerra>) 'left-handed' which clearly corresponds to Spanish <izquierdo>. I do not see how Basque, Old French, or Medieval Latin could have gotten -rr- out of a Celtic or Germanic word with simple -r-.
>
> But before proceeding further, I should check what Du Cange has to say about <larricium>.