Re: potto

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" wrote:

>
> > Also -ll- gives an alveolo-patatal /tç/ affricate in Pyrenaic
> > (also found in West Asturian and similar to the retroflex stop of
> > South Italian and Sardinian dialects) but not in Basque. This is
> > why from Latin pullu- we've got Basque pullo (L, LN, Z), pollo
> > (Z), pollu (Z) 'donkey' with a lateral palatal vs. potto (Bazt)
> > 'colt, young horse', potxa (B) 'colt', potx (B, G) 'interjection
> >  for calling a young donkey', with /c/ and /tS/ .
>
> It's more likely potto instead << potro Sp; potro \ poldro Por; ( <
> *pullastrus = colt VL; pullastra = pullet L; ) .
>
> > I strongly disagree, as we've got Gascon poth /puc, putS/
> > 'pullet' < Latin pullu-, with the very same treatment of -ll-
> > than Pyrenaic.
>
> All native Bq tt seems to come from ty (including yat- > yt- > ty-), > in diminutives.
>
> > I never said potto was native Basque (nor a diminutive), but rather the contrary.
>
> With all the trouble you have getting people to listen to you, I wouldn't think you'd want to make more for no reason. No one has questioned whether the origin of potto was Bq. or Rom., I'm just describing where the sound comes from within Bq. to find out what kind of borrowed clusters might give the same sound. The word for 'colt' had -tr- ,
>

This is so in Spanish and several other Romance languages, but Basque appears to have "tapped" a different output from Latin pullu-, which gives pullo 'donkey'. The link between potto and pullo is the formentioned form potx 'interjection for calling a young donkey'.

> so looking elsewhere just because some similar words had dif. clusters that palatalized, like MANY in Rom., isn't productive.
>

Although I won't call -ll- a "cluster", surely I forgot to mention katxo /kátSo/ (LN) 'callus'. My point is this kind of "palatalization" isn't native to Basque but to specific Romance languages.