Pre-Basque Phonology

Larry Trask larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
Fri Oct 15 15:04:48 UTC 1999


Roz Frank writes:

[on Basque <bat> 'one' from *<bade>]

>  In other words, for you the meaning of <bedera> is "one apiece"? I think
>  you defined it this way in an earlier mailing, also.

Yes.  The word has other meanings, but 'one apiece' is the most widespread,
and, more importantly, it's the earliest sense recorded -- in Leizarraga, in
1571.

>   Hence, the data set under analysis consists solely of <bedera> and
>  <bederatzi> since these are the only two examples mentioned by Michelena,
>  right?

Primarily, yes.  There are one or two other words which may also be connected,
but these are less clear.

>  You have shared with us two statements concerning the etymology of <bat>:
>  First your own which you phrased as follows:

>  1). that <bat> "is pretty clearly derived from earlier *<bade>."

>  Then you provided us with a paraphrase or synopsis of Michelena's
>  statements on the topic:

>  2). that in Michelena's opinion the etymology from *<bade> "lacked
>  compelling evidence" and hence
>  "was not secure." It should be considered, therefore, "only a plausible
>  suggestion."

>  Having read over Michelena's comments, I believe your summary of them,
>  provided above, is quite accurate and appropriate. It expands on
>  Michelena's representation of *<bade> as "*<bade>?". He clearly didn't feel
>  fully confident about it. Also, above you state that you "endorse Gavel's
>  and Michelena's suggestions," once again emphasizing the tentative nature
>  of the reconstruction and once again a very measured statement on your part.

Correct.

>  However, there is a third instance in which you have spoken about this same
>  problem although in rather different terms. Specifically on that occasion
>  you stated the following:

>  "It is most unusual for a native Basque word to end in a plosive, and <bat>
>  is clearly from earlier *<bade> or *<bada>  suggested by  the morph <bede->
>  in derivatives as (northern) <bedera> 'one apiece' and <bederatzi> 'nine'."

>  To my knowledge Michelena did not list the second etymon *<bada>, although
>  perhaps he did so on some other occasion, i.e., not in his work _Fonetica
>  Historica Vasca_.

The variant proposal *<bada>, which I do not endorse, was not made by
Michelena, but by somebody else more recently.  Sorry; I've forgotten who it
was.

>  As you will recall, the above quote is found on page 273 of your book _The
>  History of Basque_. Your statement, therefore, seems to contradict what you
>  have shared with us on the IE list or at least to be far less cautious.
>  Furthermore, I note that in your book you list <bede-> as a morph, not as
>  *<bede->. Earlier on this list you also affirmed that <bedere(n> contains
>  the same morph, if my memory serves me right.

No; I didn't affirm any such thing.  I merely noted that it was possible.

As for <bede->, this is an attested morph, and so it gets no asterisk.

>  Before you wrote your book, did you discover additional evidence -beyond
>  that presented by Gavel and Michelena- which strengthened your conviction
>  concerning this version of events? And if you did find additional proof for
>  this position, could you share it with us?

>  Furthermore, based on your statements in the email on this topic cited
>  above ("I can claim no credit."), you seem to be saying that all you have
>  done is repeat the positions of Gavel and Michelena, nothing more. Yet in
>  this section of your book you do not cite or otherwise overtly refer to the
>  specific works of Gavel nor Michelena where they discuss this problem.
>  Indeed, your statement "<bat> is clearly from earlier *<bade> or *<bada>"
>  leaves the impression that there is no other possibility: that yours is a
>  summary of the consensus opinion.

I am more enthusiastic about *<bade> than Michelena was, that's all.

I don't know if there exists a consensus.  But I know of nobody who has
criticized Michelena's proposal of *<bade>.

>  In that respect I would mention that Ribary in his _Ensayo sobre la lengua
>  vasca_, translated by Julian Vinson (Paris, 1877) argued that the first
>  element in <bederatzi> was <bat>, i.e., that the word should be broken down
>  into <bed-era-tzi>) and where <bat> had taken on the shape of *<bed>.  In
>  other words, he doesn't question the original shape of the root-stem. (As
>  an aside I should mention that I don't agree with Ribary's etymology of the
>  ending on <bederatzi>).

Ah, tremendous!  Thanks, Roz -- I didn't know about this early suggestion, and
apparently neither did Agud and Tovar.  But I agree that the rest of Ribary's
analysis looks indefensible.

>  For anyone working in comparative linguistics it is important to be able to
>  build on the works of those who have gone before. However, there is always
>  the possibility that somewhere in the chain of transmissions -like in the
>  proverbial game of telephone- the message gets garbled. The danger is that
>  others can start using that version of linguistic realities as a basis for
>  further descriptions of the phenomena under study, i.e., utilizing
>  paraphrases of others' works rather than testing the data themselves.

Sure, but I am trying to be careful here, and to consult the raw data as far as
I can.

>  At least in the case of Euskera, it has been my experience that sometimes
>  it can be a risky business unless each aspect of the data sets used in
>  reconstructing the phonology of the language is well researched, checked
>  and double-checked for accuracy. This is obviously a monumental task in the
>  case of (P)IE comparative linguistics (given the massive volume of earlier
>  research), but perhaps it is still possible in the case of Euskera given
>  the much more restricted number of detailed investigations on these aspects
>  of the language and the circumscribed nature of the data themselves.

Yes, but this is precisely what I'm trying to do.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk



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