abarca/abarka/alpargata

roslyn frank roslynfrank at hotmail.com
Mon Mar 29 02:46:02 UTC 1999


>From: Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu>
>Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 16:46:33 -0600

>Does Basque -ar have a connection with Spanish -ar/-al?
><-al> --on the whole-- is a dialect form
>[e.g. Central American <pinal>],
>as well as an allophonic form /-al/
>in dialects where final /-r > -l/
>although there are certain forms that use /-al/ everywhere
>/-ar/ is the more common form
>Spanish -ar/-al is commonly used for groves of certain trees e.g.
>pinar, pinal "pine grove"
>mazanar "apple grove" [no apple trees in Central America, so no
*manzanales]
>naranjal "orange grove"
>
>but oddly, a pear tree is a <peral>

[ moderator snip ]

Rick,
I don't know what the answer is to your question. Nor do I know how this
ending is explained in Romance languages (I assume it appears in other
ones). But I would like to ask Larry the following. In reference to what
you say above, do you mean to infer, therefore, that there are/were once
two suffixes in Euskera both spelled <-ar> but with different meanings?
Or that they might be (have been) related?

I am referring to the fact that the suffixing particle <-ar/-tar> is
alive and well in Euskera. However, to my knowledge its meaning is not
precisely that of a "collective suffix" and it clearly is not
"fossilized" in any sense of the word. I'm thinking of the <-ar> of
expressions like <iltzear> (from <il-tze-ar> "on the verge of death" or
the common use of <-ar/-tar> to refer to "someone or something from a
given place (with no gender or animacy/inanimacy specified), "oriundo
de", e.g., <Bilbotar> "someone from Bilbao." Certainly the same particle
also seems to shows up occasionally as a suffix on free-standing
root-stems, in contrast to the examples that you give where (at least
today) there is no free-standing root-stem. At the moment none of the
former examples come to mind (I don't have my files here), but, as I
recall, their referentiality might be closer to what you are trying to
get at with the above.

Nonetheless, to my knowledge, in Euskera this last ending is never used
to create collective abstractions of the type "apple-grove". As you well
know, to construct those abstractions the suffix regularly used (today)
is <-di/-ti>.

Since we already have the suffixing element <-ar> "male" occupying this
slot, to add a third member would make for a pretty crowded closet....
In other words, do you see the possibility that <-ar/-tar> mentioned
above might be connected in some way to the "fossilized" ending you are
discussing?

Beste bat arte,
Roz
March 28, 1999



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