Basque 'trebe'

[Larry Trask]

Rick Mc Allister writes:

>       There's Spanish trebejo "game piece, piece of a tool set, etc."
>  which is not commonly used --at least among Latin Americans. The meaning is
>  not quite there, but there may be a link somewhere but I don't have access
>  to Corominas/Coromines.

I've checked Coromines, and he recognizes no connection with Latin <trebax>.

[LT]

>> Second, Pre-Basque absolutely did not permit plosive-liquid clusters in any
>> position, and such clusters were invariably eliminated in loans from Latin.
>> The usual way of resolving a word-initial /tr-/ cluster was to break it up
>> by inserting an echo of the following vowel.  Hence *<tre-> should have
>> yielded a Basque *<dere->, or at best *<tere-> -- not attested.  Compare,
>> for example, Basque <daraturu> (and variants) 'drill', from the Latin
>> accusative <taratrum>.

>       IF [BIG IF, that is] I remember correctly, you said early Basque
>  /l/ > /r/, so maybe via Spanish taladro or some similar form?

Sorry, folks: a goof.  The Latin word is <talatrum>, not *<taratrum>.  I was
dozily applying a Basque sound law, wrongly, to the Latin word.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk