Basque *<bil> 'round'

[Larry Trask]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Ed Selleslagh writes:

[on my observation that *<bil> 'round' cannot be present in <ibili> 'be
in motion']

> I learned it (i.e. "go around") from you, maybe two years or so ago, on the
> Basque-l list.

Ah, mea culpa.  I may well have used this gloss, unfortunately, but I meant
it in the sense of 'go about', 'go here and there'.

> In that case I don't understand your statement of a few years ago. Have you
> changed your opinion? (which I would readily accept).

No; it just means I'm correcting a thoughtless and misleading gloss.
My apologies for misleading you.

[on *<bil> 'round' and the verb <ibili> <-- *<e-bil-i>]

> Do we really know the kind of root *bil originally was?

Yes.  The one in <ibili> is demonstrably verbal.  But the one meaning 'round'
is equally demonstrably non-verbal.  The second occurs as the final element
in compounds.  No verbal root ever occurs bare inside a compound.  And even
a verbal stem (<ibil-> in our case) can only occur as the first element
in word-formation, not as the final element.  Hence the <-bil> of <gurpil>,
<opil>, <ukabil>, and so on cannot be verbal.

[on my puzzlement over a suggested PIE source]

> What I meant was this (I'm sorry for having been so elliptic), and you may
> agree or not: *kwekwlo (or *kwekulo) looks to me like a reduplicated form,
> probably inspired by the reconstruction from Grk. kyklos. Indeed, it is the
> logical thing to assume if you try to reconstruct from Germanic (Eng. wheel,
> or Du. wiel < hwi:l- < *kwelo), and we know the Old Greek tendency to
> reduplication and insertion of quasi-dummy syllables for basically 'prosodic'
> reasons, like in the sigmatic aorist etc. So, it is not unreasonable to
> assume (no hard evidence!!) that *kwelo gave rise to a Basque
> re-interpretation *bel-, via some intermediate (most likely IE) stage
> *(h)wel-.

"Not unreasonable"?

Well, first the vocalism is wrong.  Basque does indeed have another ancient
stem of the form *<bel>, but this means 'dark', not 'round'.

Also, what has happened to the final vowel of the PIE form?  I don't think
*<kwel> was a PIE word-form, and Basque does not normally lose final vowels
in borrowed words.

Finally, for what it's worth (probably not much), medieval Spanish <gw->
was borrowed into Basque as <g->, not as <b->.  Note Basque <gorde> 'keep'
from Castilian <guardar> or a related Romance form.

[on the Basque temporal suffix <-te>]

> It is also part of (compound) 'extent' suffixes like -ate, -arte, ...You're
> right if you consider -te in isolation.

Sorry, but I don't recognize <-ate>.  What is this, and where does it occur?

As for <arte>, this is not a suffix, but a noun meaning 'interval', 'space
between'.  This often occurs as a final element in compounds, but it's still
not a suffix.  Of course, it is possible that <arte> itself contains the
suffix <-te>, but there appears to be no way of investigating this.

[LT]

>> Finally, an original *<bite> should *not* develop into <bide>.  There is no
>> parallel for such a development.

> Right, but not impossible for such an old term.

Not impossible, perhaps, but not supported by any evidence, either.

Anyway, if some ancient stage of Basque voiced intervocalic plosives, then
we have a problem with all those seemingly ancient words like <ate> 'door',
<lokatz> 'mud', <zati> 'piece', <zatar> 'rag', <ito> 'drown', <ukan> 'have',
<uko> 'denial, refusal', <atal> 'segment', <aita> 'father', and many others.
Why didn't they undergo voicing?

[on my assertion that <ibai> 'river' is a derivative of <ibar> 'valley',
perhaps originally 'water meadow']

> Agud and Tovar in Dicc. Etim. Vasco don't think so and neither do their
> numerous sources. They seem to find it rather problematic (the final r of
> ibar is rr).

No.  Agud and Tovar, as usual, express no opinions at all, but merely report
the (numerous) proposals in the literature, which range from the sober through
the speculative to the silly.  Nor do they describe the loss of the final
rhotic as problematic.  Instead, they merely report Michelena's observation
that loss of a final rhotic in a first element in word-formation was once
regular.  This is true for both Basque rhotics, which in any case were probably
not distinguished in final position in Pre-Basque.  Note, for example, that
such words as <lur> 'earth', <adar> 'horn', <izter> 'thigh' and <belar>
'grass', all of which have a final trill today, exhibit the combining forms
<lu->, <ada->, <izte-> and <bela->, respectively, in a number of compounds and
derivatives.

[on <Ebro> and <Iberia>]

> Two remarks:

> 1. There are clear indications that Iberian and Basque share some words,
> suffixes and some external features, probably through contact or other
> exchange mechanisms.

Typological features, probably -- maybe areal features.

Morphemes, possibly, but we hardly ever know the meaning of anything in
Iberian.

Contact, quite possibly, but contact is not a license for interpreting
Iberian as Basque -- which it plainly is not.

> Quite a few Iberian toponyms could just as well be Basque (Oriola,

Looks vaguely Basque, but what would the Basque etymology be?

> Aspe,

Looks a bit like the known Basque toponym <Axpe>, depending on how that
sibilant is interpreted.  But the Basque name is late and secondary in its
form.  It derives from *<haitz> 'crag' + <-be> ~ <-pe> 'below', itself a
reduced form of <behe-> -- and a very suitable name if you've seen the place.
Is the Iberian place also located under a towering crag?

> Ibi,

Not very distinctive, and I've already argued that modern Basque <ibi> 'ford'
is late and secondary, from original *<ur-bide>.

> Tibi.....

No.  No native Basque word or name begins with /t/, or even with /d/.

> and maybe Calpe).

But that initial /k/ is also intolerable in Basque, assuming that we are
really looking at a /k/, and not at a /g/.

> So looking for a Basque-like etymology is
> not far-fetched, even though it hasn't been proven that this is admissible.

The Iberian texts have been meticulously scrutinized for possible links with
Basque.  The two major figures here, Tovar and Michelena, both concluded
independently that a Basque-Iberian link could not be maintained, apart
perhaps from a few areal features and a few loan words.

> 2. The Romans (after the Greek) called what is roughly Georgia 'Iberia'.
> This is probably derived from Kartvelian 'bari' meaning 'valley' (of the
> Araxes one can guess).

Maybe, but what has this to do with Basque?

[on a possible IE source for Basque <(h)artz> 'bear']

> Grk. arktos (and related IE) looks like a pretty good candidate to me.  Of
> course, it is possible that it is a shared substrate.

Eh?  The Greek word has an excellent PIE etymon.

Anyway, Greek <arktos> should not have been borrowed as <(h)artz>.  Given
what we know of early borrowings, we would have expected something like
*<(h)artotz> -- just as we would have expected from Celtic *<artos>.

[on possible genetic links for Basque]

> I am familiar with your viewpoint and I respect it. But there are those that
> think this is an unfinished business that needs to be looked into.

Well, be my guest.  But be aware that practically every language in the Old
World has already been scrutinized for a possible link with Basque, and
yet nothing of interest has ever turned up.  There can hardly be many stones
left unturned.

> If one never leaves the beaten track, it is hard to find anything really new
> or unsuspected: a priori theories and speculation are OK as long as 1) one is
> aware of it being speculation, 2) it is followed by verification, and the
> results of that, be they negative or positive, are accepted.  It's the way
> science works.

> That's why I said myself that it was speculation, and hoped it would
> stimulate others to think about the problems involved.

Er -- what problems?  Why does the existence of native words in the genetically
isolated language Basque constitute a problem?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk