Basque butterflies again (again)

Larry Trask larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
Tue Jan 25 10:47:51 UTC 2000


[ moderator re-formatted ]

Roz Frank writes:

>  I would note that in addition to its meaning of "butterfly", Azkue (I:173)
>  lists <pitxilote> (B) with the meaning of "daisy" ("margarita de los
>  prados") while <pitxoleta> refers simultaneously to the following three
>  objects: a butterfly, a daisy and a poppy.

Yes.  A point I refrained from making in my earlier postings is this: a single
Basque expressive formation often has a rather startling array of quite
different senses, sometimes in a single variety, but more commonly, perhaps, in
different varieties.  This is yet another characteristic which distinguishes
expressive formations, even if not entirely sharply, from ordinary lexical
items, which on the whole do not exhibit such a range of unrelated meanings.

The interpretation I place upon this observation is the following.
Basque-speakers favor certain stems and certain patterns of formation for
constructing expressive words.  As a consequence, identical or similar
formations are frequently coined independently and applied to a diverse array
of referents.  This view is entirely in line with my general position that
expressive words in Basque have been subject to ceaseless renewal and
replacement for many centuries, and that any given expressive formation is most
unlikely to be of any great antiquity in the language.

>  In what are now non-Basque speaking zones of Navarre we find evidence for
>  the prior existence in the Basque of the zone for <mitxingorri>
>  (<*bitxi/pitxi(n)-gorri> from <gorri> "red"). Jose Maria Iribarren (1984)
>  records this expression, spelling it as <michingorri> and listing its
>  meaning as "poppy". The compound might be glossed as "pretty little red
>  thing".

Indeed.  I didn't know this particular word, but it is entirely in line with
the usual Basque patterns of expressive coinages.  Azkue's dictionary records
many hundreds, probably even thousands, of localized expressive formations, but
even the indefatigable Azkue couldn't manage to pick up all the ones in use in
his own day, and moreover it is clear that further instances have been coined
since his day.  There are doubtless many more of these things, living and
extinct, littering the Basque linguistic landscape, and often recorded by
nobody.

But the lesson I draw is again that these formations are, in general, neither
ancient nor long-lived, nor even stable in form and meaning.  Hence they are of
no relevance to the reconstruction of Pre-Basque, a task which must be
performed by using words for which there is a strong case for considerable
antiquity.

[snip 'butterfly' words]

>  Finally, based on the implications of the data sets discussed above, I'm
>  not convinced that LT's closing remark, cited below, fully reflects the
>  semantic realities (and complexities) of the situation:

>  [LT]

>>  I therefore conclude that Lloyd's efforts at linking some of the Basque
>>  words to words in other languages (and also to one another) are without
>>  foundation.  The Basque 'butterfly' words are numerous and severely
>>  localized; they conform strongly to observed patterns for coining
>>  expressive formations; and they can scarcely be of any antiquity.

Well, I stand by these words, and I think the point raised above by Roz
(multiple unrelated senses for individual formations) constitutes evidence in
favor of my position.

Anyway, I can't really see that the issues here are primarily or largely
"semantic".  Rather, the central issues are phonological and morphological.
Expressive formations in Basque do indeed tend to fall into certain semantic
domains, but what really sets them apart from other words is their highly
distinctive and highly variable phonology, together with their peculiar
morphology -- or, I might almost say, their lack of morphology.  Expressive
formations often contain familiar stems, but they also often contain
unidentifiable, and essentially non-morphological, stretches of phonological
material, material seemingly selected for its agreeable sound, but representing
no Basque morpheme.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk



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