From: Etherman23
Message: 71310
Date: 2013-09-14
I'm really starting to hate this new format.
Anyway, the sound law *sw > b struck me as odd at first but if it went like **sw > *w > b then it's very reasonable. However, I don't know if such a sequence would fit in with the rest of the proposed changes.
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <cybalist@yahoogroups.com> wrote:5. Bq. _ar_ 'male'; PIE *h2/4né:r 'man, hero'. If _ar_ indeed reflected *anar as you claim, the northern form would be *ahar, and in fact under #166 you refer northern _zahar_ 'old' (southern _zar_) to *zanar. But then you say *-ar in *zanar may be identical to _ar_ 'man, male', whose protoform you insist is *anar, so the REAL protoform of _zahar_ must be *zananar.
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[Tavi]
Actually, Basque zahar 'old' does NOT have a medial nasal nor it contains ar 'male', whose Iberian counterparts are respectively sakar, tar. The protoform *anar actually corresponds to Basque ar, a~ar 'worm'.
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[DGK]
That means BOTH Gianfranco's #5 and #166 are unjustifiable on the Basque side.
[Tavi]
Please notice /r/ is these words is a trill rhotic, which is a different phoneme than the tap rhotic /R/ in e.g. bero /beRo/.
[DGK]
In my personal notes I follow Alessio and a few others in writing such words with -r' when they show the trill with vocalic suffixes, like _arra_ 'the male'. The handbooks cite only pronouns, some recently borrowed nouns, and the native nouns _hor_ 'dog', _ur_ 'water', and _zur_ 'wood' as Basque words ending in weak -r (i.e. an underlying tap rhotic).