Re: Is Basque IE?

> [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).
>>
> [Tavi]
> In the past, this convention was in use among Basque writers but it was
> abolished by the Basque Academy (Euskaltzaindia).
> and it's still employed in Iberian transcriptions, but I think it's
> preferrable the other way around, because (apart from loanwords) the tap is
> *secondary* in Basque, the trill being the genuine rhotic as in Iberian.
>>
> In other words, Paleo-Basque/Iberian /r/ wasn't part of a strong/weak pair
> and it's reflected as a trill in modern Basque and Romance. However,
> there're some reare cases of Basque /r/ arising from gemination of /R/, as
> in larre 'meadow; heath; uncultivated land, desert', a loanword from Celtic
> (Gaulish) *landa: 'heath, moor' > *lanna > larra > larre.
>
> [DGK]
> But _landa_ 'campo, pieza de terreno' occurs widely in Basque (Bisc., Guip.,
> Aezc., Lab., High & Low Nav., Ronc.) and appears to continue Gaul. *landa:
> directly. Moreover a Late Gaul. *lanna would have given Bq. *lana, since
> Latin _anno:na_ gives Bq. _anoa_. If _larra-_, _larre_ is borrowed from
> Gaulish, it probably continues a collective *la:rja: (or *larja: by
> Osthoff's shortening) 'flat area' from *la:ro- 'flat surface, floor', PIE
> *pl.h2-ró- or *pléh2-ro-. (Latin _pla:nus_ can represent *pl.h2-nó- and
> provides no evidence for a heteroclite, pace Matasovic', only for different
> suffixes.)
>

Bhr.:

All right, I just wonder why Osthoff's shortening in *la:rja:
(wouldn't it rather develop a Sievers' variant *la:rija:?)

DGK:

In his draft glossary Matasovic' has several examples of heavy syllables not developing a Sievers' variant, e.g. Proto-Celtic *argjo- 'white; snow' > Gaul. Argio-talus, etc. I do not know whether Osthoff would be applicable in this time frame; hence my parenthetical guess. A Basque borrowing would not distinguish length.

Your own etymology of _glo:ria_ does not involve Sievers. My problem is that I never heard of being "green with glory", so I find the route Gaulish *klovesja: (vel sim.) > Ligurian > Old Latin more plausible, as with _gladius_. However, in order to investigate this theory that initial Gaulish tenues became mediae when borrowed into Ligurian (which I now attribute to differences in initial consonant strength, NOT aspiration), I need to get a copy of J.U. Hubschmied's long paper on Late Gaulish in Vox Romanica vol. 3 from the university library. Once I get this paper, it may turn out that counter-examples kill my theory.