Pre-Basque phonology (fwd)

[Roslyn M. Frank]

Part 1

At 10:18 AM 9/13/99 +0100, Larry Trask wrote:
[on the bisyllabic rather than monsyllabic nature of <behi> vs. <bei> "cow"]

[LT]
>First, it is linguistically unusual and unnatural to create new
>syllables in the middle of a word.  Hence northern <behi> versus
>southern <bei> points clearly to the conservative nature of <behi>.

[RF]
Sorry I don't understand this argument. Particularly I don't follow the meaning
of the terms "unusual" and "unnatural". The first seems to refer to
statistically demonstrated probabilities based on cross-linguistic/typological
studies, while the second's meaning is more obscure. In making these comments I
have in mind several points that Steve Long has made in recent mailings
concerning the methodology used in comparative reconstructions when several
dialects/daughter languages are used to recreate the earlier state of a
linguistic system.

[LT]
>Second, we have minimal pairs in the aspirating dialects, like <sei>
>`six' and <sehi> `boy, servant'.  If we took *<sei> as the ancestral
>form in both cases, we would have no principled basis for explaining the
>modern contrast.

[RF]
Unless <sei> is a more recent/ancient loan word, i.e., related to items such as
<seis> in Spanish. In this respect I don't argue with your logic, only your
particular example. Had it been a different one where the loan word status of
one of the items was less questionable and had the sample in question consisted
of a half dozen or so such examples of minimal pairs, its power of persuasion
would have been greater. This is a case where a more statistically driven model
might give us much better results. But that assumes the need to collect data
without eliminating one or the other of the possibilities. For instance, one
would need to collect data for all the southern/central dialects in order to
see how the problem of polysemy is dealt with. In otherwords a stronger
argument would be to show that in northern dialects there are indeed an
extended set of minimal pairs in which the presence of /h/ (or [h] ?) is the
only distinguishing characteristic. The only one that comes to my mind is that
of /sei/ "six" and /sehi/ "boy, servant." To my knowledge, northern dialects do
notcontrast /behi/ "cow" with */bei/ meaning something else; nor /behe/ "low,
below, beneath" with */be/ meaning something else. That doesn't mean that there
might not be other minimal pairs that could be examined.

Larry then concludes:

[LT]
>It appears that we must reconstruct two Pre-Basque
>forms [/sei/ and /sehi/] with differing numbers of syllables, with the
contrast surviving
>in the north but lost in the south after the loss of the aspiration.

[RF]
In other words, you argue that root-stems
which are monsyllabic (and unaspirated) in southern dialects should be
considered bisyllabic in Pre-Basque.

[LT]
>Third, aspiration survives today in the north.  It was also very
>prominent in the west, in Bizkaia and Araba, during the Middle Ages, as
>our written records show.  For the central dialects, there is no direct
>attestation of any aspiration.  By far the most parsimonious scenario is
>a Pre-Basque aspiration in all varieties, followed by early loss in the
>center, much later loss in the west, and retention down to today in the
>north.

[RF]
Why is this "by far the most parsimonious scenario"?  Do you mean that the lack
of aspiration in central dialects means they are the least stable and hence
most deviant (at least for this item)? Isn't there another way of looking at
data which portrays features found in "central dialects" (geographically
speaking) as being more representative of "core" or "earlier" features"?  I'm
not necessarily subscribing to this view, simply stating it.

[LT]
>Fourth, we have good evidence that ancient Aquitanian was an ancestral
>form of Basque -- and the written aspiration is pervasive in the
>Aquitanian materials.
>
[RF]
Again there are a number of prior assumptions involved in that argument, e.g.,
that Aquitanian was, indeed, an ancestral form of Basque and not simply
a(nother northern) dialect.

Since we are talking about aspiration I would like to return to an earlier
mailing where I queried Larry concerning the position taken in the
reconstruction concerning the distribution of p/b, k/g, t/d alternations and
their aspirated counterparts in pre-Basque. The exchange was the following:

[RF]
> Also, I've always wondered about the p/b, k/g, t/d alternations in
> pre-Basque (and/or their *aspirated counterparts). Perhaps you could
> comment a bit on the distribution of these in modern Basque. It's an
> intriguing problem.

[snip]

[LT]
As for the aspiration, that is one issue on which we still do not have
full agreement.  The matter is much too complex to be discussed in
detail here.  Michelena's conclusion, which I endorse, was that *most*
instances of the aspiration are of suprasegmental origin, possibly
associated with the word-stress at an early stage.  Michelena left open
the possibility that *some* instances of /h/ (though not of the
aspirated plosives), at least in word-initial position, might have
resulted from the lenition of earlier consonants.  There is a tiny
amount of evidence to support this, but not enough to make a persuasive
case.

[snip]

> [LT]

>> Potentially the most serious problem is the /h/, but I know of no one at
>> present who disputes M's conclusion that *most* instances of /h/ are of
>> suprasegmental origin.  However, it remains possible to disagree about
>> whether *some* /h/s are of segmental origin.  In practice, though, this
>> isn't much of an issue, and we can readily dispose of any difficulties
>> by reconstructing Pre-Basque -- contra M -- with a *phonetic* [h] in our
>> transcriptions, allowing users to draw their own conclusions.

[RF]
At another point in our earlier discussion, I asked whether the monosyllabic
root-stems in southern Basque dialects (which have aspirated bisyllabic
counterparts in northern dialects) were considered bisyllabic, i.e., whether
the forms in the northern dialects were given preference in reconstructions.
Specifically we were speaking of root-stems with an initial /b/. Larry's
response indicated that the reconstruction took the northern variants as
representing the earlier stage and, therefore, the southern ones  would show a
loss of aspiration and consequently a falling together of the two syllables
into one.

Yet it seems to me that there may be other ways to look at the problem,
particularly since the status of aspirated consonant series in pre-Basque
doesn't seem to be fully understood. Let me suggest two alternate scenarios and
then I would like others to explain why these are excluded as explanations.

For our examples we shall use the bisyllabic root-stem /behe/ (N) and its
monosyllabic counterpart /be/ (S) whose meaning in both dialectal groups is
"low, below, beneath."

 Alternate Reconstructions:

1) Let us assume that the parent form had a phoneme in */bh/ and that northern
dialects retained it while the southern dialects lost it. This would mean that
the parent form was monosyllabic in */bhe/. Next, over time the northern
dialects lost track of the phonemic status of */bh/ and the aspiration was
rearticulated as /behe/. Or even that there developed at some part an allophone
of */bh/ in */beh-/.

This would make the northern dialects more conservative in one sense for they
would have retained a trace of the original aspirated phoneme, but also
innovative in that, in the process, they converted the earlier monosyllabic
item into a bisyllabic one. On the other hand, the southern dialects would be
conservative in retaining the monosyllabic nature of the parent form, but
innovative in terms of the loss of aspiration.

2) Let us assume that the parent form had no aspirated consonants, i.e., that
the earlier form of the item was */be/. Then let us further assume that at
least some of the northern dialects developed aspirated consonants, a
characteristic that might have also spread to some extent to the southern
dialects but did not fully take hold. Over time the aspirated consonant
(or allophone of */b-/) in */bh/ which had developed in these dialects, perhaps
under pressure from those dialects that lacked this characteristic,
rearticulated all the monosyllabic CV root-stems in /bh/ into */bVhV/. In the
case of the southern dialects the monosyllabic non-aspirated form */be/  was
retained: there was no innovation.

Canonical Reconstruction:
3) Let us assume that the parent form was */behe/, identical to that found in
northern dialects today, as Larry has suggested. That reconstruction of events
means the innovation/loss would have occurred in the southern dialects, while
the northern ones would be viewed as more conservative (for this feature). This
is the standard interpretation, if I understand Larry's remarks correctly. With
respect to this interpretation I would like to ask what role, if any, was
played in this scenario by the aspirated consonants of the northern dialects,
e.g., /bh/. I would mention, as Larry has, that the alternation between /b/ and
/p/ is a common feature in southern dialects as well as northern ones.

Please excuse my simplistic descriptions of these hypothetical events. I am
certain that others on the list can improve on them as well as point out
whether (3) is, indeed, the best and/or only explanation that can be given to
the data.  Again, I insist that I have absolutely no interest in promoting one
description over another, only in hearing from others on the list (and
obviously from Larry) concerning their opinions as to which of the three
hypothetical scenarios listed above best describes the data.  Also,  I am
interested in hearing any other reasons why one of the solutions *ought* to be
preferred/adopted and the other two rejected.  I should mention that there are
probably other solutions/scenarios that could be mapped in addition to the
three sketched out here.

Ondo ibili,
Roz