--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
>
> I must retract this notion of Basque <praka(k)> 'breech(es),
trouser(s)' (Bisc., Guip.) being borrowed directly from Gaulish and
undergoing anlaut-fortition.
>
To me, it's quite obvious the source must be Vulgar Latin/Gallo-Latin
and not Gaulish itself.
> This mechanism fails to account for other Basque words in p- which
must come either from Romance or earlier Latin words in b- or v-. Such
are <palatu> 'stockade, enclosure' (Bisc. ~ Sp. <vallado>), <pasta>
'pack-saddle' (Guip. ~ Sp. <basto>), <pazi> 'caldron' (High Nav., Guip.
~ Sp. <bacina> 'poor-box'), and <perruca> 'wart' (Ronc. ~ Sp.
<verruga>).
>
Don't forget about palaga(t)u 'to praise', from Hispano-Arabic xálaq
'to smooth, to polish' (Spanish halagar). Also perruka (with /k/ in
Basque ortography) is a dialect form restricted to Roncalese.
> Hubschmid's derivation of <pazi> from Sp. <bacín> 'high
chamber-pot' (itself borrowed from Catalan) is at odds with the early
date of the others, and in my view is incorrect (Thes. Praerom. 2:101).
Instead I regard <pazi> as extracted from *pazia interpreted as
containing the article -a, and this probably from Vulg. Lat. *bacci:na,
by-form to Late Lat. <bacchi:non> 'basin' (Greg. Tur.; written by
Meyer-Lübke as <bacci:num> and considered probably African in origin,
REW 866).
>
This is proved by the variant paziña (Bazt, L).
> The simplest way I see to explain these borrowings, including
<praka(k)>, is to posit an interval of time during which the VL dialect
spoken in the Basque Country had merged Class. Lat. b- [b-] and v- [w-]
into a voiced fricative [B-].
>
Actually, this happened in northern Hispano-Romance.
> Both this and the corresponding unvoiced fricative [f-] were heard by
contemporary Basque-speakers as a long labial, which subsequently became
fortis and has come into modern Basque as [p-].
>
Usually, /B-/ is reflected as Basque /m-/, as in vagina [Bagína] >
magiña 'sheath'. Also *padula 'marsh' (Classical padu:le-) gave
Basque padura, fadura, madura.
> Thus <pago> 'beech' and <ponte> 'tufa' (Lat. <fagum>, <fontem>
'spring') come from this same stratum, extending into the earliest
Romance (hence not *pagu), well before medieval Basque acquired [f].
But words from CL and earlier VL (the early Christian loans) assign [p-]
and [b-] along with [w-] and [f-] to the lenis labial, now [b-]. To
reconcile this with the longa/brevis distinction for which I have argued
previously, agreeing with -bb- > -p-, *-gg- > -k-, and less obviously
*-dd- > -t- in Basque words, it seems necessary to assume that Basque
had no initial [p-] until the time that <praka(k)> and the other words
above were borrowed. Germanic names in which F- becomes Basque P-
suggest that this occurred no later than the fifth century.
>
> A doublet like <bortitz>/<portitz> from Lat. <fortis> in this view
requires no intermediate language, merely an earlier and later stage of
borrowing the same word.
>
I disagree, as in IMHO diatopic variation is preferrable to diachronic
one. As I mentioned before, there's a lexicon layer which systematically
voices initial stops, either from Latin/early Romance, as in causa >
gauza, castellu- > gaztelu, or Basque itself, as in pats (with the
variants fats, phats) 'pomace; dregs' > batz. You might also notice the
apical sibilant /s'/ changes into a laminal /s/.
I'd also encourage you to discuss these matters is my own
vasco-caucasian list.