Pre-Basque phonology (fwd)

[Roslyn M. Frank]

Part II.

[on whether northern dialectal bisyllabic root-stems in /behe/ should be
considered representative of Pre-Basque rather than their monosyllabic southern
counterparts in /be/]

Continuing the discussion of how one determines criteria for choosing the forms
of one daughter language/dialect' over those of her sister....

Earlier I brought up a problem related to the reconstruction based on the
following data set of attested items where in southern dialects the forms are
monosyllabic, e.g., /be/ "low, below, beneath" while they are bisyllabic with
aspiration in northern dialects, e.g., /behe/ "low, below, beneath." Northern
dialects are characterized, in general, by aspirated consonants which are to my
knowledge, generally speaking, absent from the southern dialects today

In the earlier discussion my example was that of /behe/ versus /be. In on of
three scenarios proposed for the reconstruction of the data I argued that the
parent-form could have been */bhe and that when the aspiration was lost in the
southern dialects it resulted in /be/ while in northern dialects there would
have been an alternate form produced in */behe/ which coexisted for some time
with */bhe/. Eventually the second variant of the original root stem */bhe/
took over and */bhe/ was lost, leaving */behe/ as the only attested option for
this consonant, one that is alleged to have been aspirated in the past.  Again,
that is one scenario.

In an unrelated discussion Larry brings up the fact that he will accept the
root-stem <ke> "smoke" for his database of reconstructed items:

LT]
>Second, I repeat yet again that I am *not* excluding any data because
>they don't fit my expectations.  I am excluding data for entirely
>different reasons, reasons that are independent of my expectations and,
>in my view, entirely justified for the task I have in mind.  For
>example, the universal word <ke> `smoke' definitely does not fit my
>expectations, but I have to include it anyway, because it satisfies all
>of my criteria.

[RF]
However, my question is the following: since this root stem has several
different attested representations, which one should you choose? You seem to
have chosen a southern variant, namely, /ke/.  I refer to the fact that this
item is often pronounced /ke/ and /kee/ in southern dialects but frequently
/khe/ in northern ones. I emphasize the fact that /khe/ is considered a common
variant of this item in the northern dialects, but not */khehe/ to my
knowledge. Is this evidence for anything?

And to make things more complicated there is ample evidence for a variant in
/ekhe/ "smoke" in northern dialects whereas this appears as /eke/ in southern
dialects. I assume that Hualde would list /kehe/ also. So faced with these
representations of the same word, how does one go about reconstructing the
form?  Keeping in mind that the attested cases are /ekhe/, /khe/, /kehe/, /eke/
/ke/ and /kee/, which one should be assigned the role of best representing the
earlier form?  Or should none of them play that role? And was it originally
monosyllabic or bisyllabic. Finally, will the reconstruction of this form,
i.e., the choices that are made, have any bearing on the way that we
reconstruct /behe/ vs. /be/? Or stated differently, doesn't the set of choices
we make about the reconstruction of  the proto-form of /behe/ vs. /be/ bear on
the way that we reconstruct the proto-form of the root-stem meaning "smoke"?

Finally, aren't we caught in a dilemna when we admit at the onset that the
mechanisms (formerly) governing the aspiration of b/t/k and /p/t/g/ in Euskera
are poorly understood.

[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.

Agur t'erdi,
Roz Frank