--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister wrote:
>
> Agreed, in much of Latin America, is an assibilated alveo-palatal
affricate, pronounced sort of like /chr/ as in "chres" and "kwachro".
>
Actually, this is the so-called "assibilated r" found in some Spanish
varieties (including Peninsular ones) in the groups /tr, dr/ and
described in Zamora Munné & Guitart (1988): "Dialectología
Hispanoamericana", who quote
Oroz (1966): "La lengua castellana en Chile". Apparently, it's a voiced
fricative quite similar to Polish /z´/, also with a voiceless variant
/s´/.
> Interestingly enough enough, the feminine form of potro is potranca
with the Sorothaptic/Italoid/Venetic
> /Illyrian/Ligurian/Lusitanian classical ending /-anka/
>
I'd rather say this is an Iberian diminutive suffix -nk-/-nt-. As in
some languages these oclusives got voiced after /n/, the suffix became
-ng-/-nd-, as in Portuguese missanga 'bead'. Likewise, the femenine of
Basque oilo 'hen' is oilanda 'pullet'. Notice also the gender change in
the Basque form, which forced the coinage of the compound oilar 'cock,
rooster' with -ar 'male'.