Basque Criteria 10 -17 for inclusion (2)

[Larry Trask]

Lloyd Anderson writes:

>  13.  Words in ancient Basque, vs. words descended from words
>  in ancient Basque?  Identity requirements popping up when only historical
>  descent is relevant

>  >Obviously expressive words hardly ever satisfy
>  >my criteria, from which the most appropriate conclusion appears to be
>  >that *these particular words* are not ancient.

>  [That is not the most appropriate conclusions
>  if the criteria are biased against expressives, even indirectly,
>  as i believe I have shown Trask's are]

>  >Of course, Pre-Basque
>  >doubtless possessed *some* expressive words, but there is no evidence to
>  >support a claim that these were identical to the modern ones.

>  Identity is not the requirement, surely.

>  Here again, a typo:  Presumably Trask means that they were not
>  the ancestors of the modern ones?

No; no typo.  When I say "identical", I mean identical in the sense in
which modern English 'house' is identical to Old English <hus>.

>  Because if identity is required,
>  we have yet another criterion introduced which was not implied by
>  his definition of goals, and which would further reduce the vocabulary
>  which he admits into his collections.  He *has* used this kind of
>  wording at other points, as in the discussion of whether a range
>  of forms which show partial resemblances to each other,
>  as for 'butterfly', warrant the assumption of some proto-form.
>  For 'butterfly', he argued there was too much variation,
>  that none of the forms was ancient.
>  That is not the relevant question, a relevant question is
>  rather whether any of the forms *descend from* antecedents,
>  which were part of Basque at an earlier stage.

If you like.  But the answer to this question, for the 'butterfly'
words, is clear: it is "no".

>  This may seem like nit-picking, but I think it is not,
>  or I would not mention it.  I believe it is merely one of the
>  steps Trask takes which lead his sample to be rather unrepresentative,
>  not merely of ancient Basque, but even of ancient Basque
>  monomorphemic words, Trask's expressed goal.

>  Taking off from Trask's use of the word "modern" just above,
>  I do not accept any sharp temporal cutoff date
>  as a legitimate part of historical linguistic inquiries
>  in attempting to determine which words descend from
>  ancestors in their language, because of the demonstrable
>  occurrence of systematic biases in exclusion of some sorts
>  of items from written attestations, dependent on culture
>  and other factors...

OK, Lloyd: what are your criteria?

You still haven't given us any, you know.

>  On Basque words for 'badger', Trask today expressed
>  what I regard as a more inclusive attitude about historical descent
>  rather than identity of words,
>  though still excluding these words by their date of attestation.
>  After some considerable discussion of others' hypotheses, he says:

>  >Who knows?  Not sure what to do with this, but it looks too fishy to go
>  >straight into the list.  Anyway, not recorded before 1745, and therefore
>  >out, even though I agree at once that the numerous and peculiar regional
>  >variants point to a much older word.

>  The last clause is for me sufficient to justify study and inclusion
>  in any list of the best candidates.  Date of attestation by itself is a
>  very minor influence.

No, it isn't: not for my purposes.  Early attestation is crucial.
If a word is nowhere recorded until long after a substantial body
of written materials is available, then the word is a doubtful
candidate for antiquity.

>  Even lack of regular sound correspondences
>  is very minor, given the knowledge that irregular historical descent
>  is not rare.

Presence or absence of regular sound correspondences is not one of my
criteria.  But the presence of the wholly, even wildly, unsystematic
correspondences in form among the numerous Basque words for 'butterfly'
is certainly a strong argument against antiquity, when you look at
all the evidence.

>  The same phrasing, applied to words for 'butterfly',
>  as I hope to show in future discussion of them,
>  after Trask has had his opportunity to comment on my first analysis,
>  would appropriately suggest that they "point to a much older word",
>  just as for words for 'badger'.

They do not.  They point instead to expressive formations of recent
origin.  The 'butterfly' words exhibit *all* the characteristics of
expressive formations in Basque: segments and sequences not found
in ordinary vocabulary, unusual length, enormous and unsystematic
variation, severe localization of individual forms, lack of early
attestations, and semantics (name of a small creature, in this case).

With the partial exception of considerable and unsystematic variation,
the *single* 'badger' word exhibits *none* of these properties.  Most
(not all) of the variant forms can be straightforwardly derived from
an original *<azkone>.  This looks nothing like an expressive formation.
In fact, it is indistinguishable from a native Basque word.  But it
has been widely suspected of being borrowed from Latin <taxonem>.
Quite apart from the late attestation (1745), this plausible Latin
source is enough to exclude the word from my list.  Any Basque word
for which a good case can be made for a loan origin must be excluded
from my list.

>  That discussion will of course
>  be based on the facts of the words for 'butterfly' and of the
>  patterns of sound changes and irregularities in Basque, etc..

Indeed.  And the 'butterfly' words are out, by every conceivable
criterion.

>  14.  Use of patterns dominant in Basque to downgrade words
>  which do not fit the dominant patterns.

>  (This objection, pointing to an alternative to Trasks application
>  of his criteria, may have been part of the earlier list of nine,
>  though I do not at present recall that it was;
>  but because new concrete examples make it relevant,
>  I highlight it here.  It has at least new application now.)

>  One of Trask's objections to inclusion of words in his lists,
>  which influences him to regard them as loanwords or
>  inventions, is that no native Basque words have two voiceless
>  stops, or voiceless stops beginning the first syllable.
>  (I may not have stated that exactly right, but the general
>  point is clear.)

Change to "two voiceless plosives", and you are right.

However, this is only a belief of mine, a preliminary conclusion.
It is *not* a criterion for excluding words.  So, as I've said before,
Basque <tipi> 'small', in spite of its two voiceless plosives, and
in spite of my beliefs, must go into my list, because it satisfies
all my criteria.

>  On Basque 'chick', which he points out is the only word
>  for a small animal (from a list) which is *not* formed with
>  the suffix -(k)ume 'offspring' and thus polymorphemic,
>  he writes:

>  >'chick' is the obviously imitative
>  >          <(t)xito> ~ <(t)xita> ~ <txitxa>.
>  >This last word will probably meet my
>  >criteria, but will stand out a mile.

>  Well, but if it is included, then at least that word
>  with two voicelss stops is presumptively part of ancient Basque
>  (if it meets other legitimate evaluations to a sufficient degree).

Doesn't follow, I'm afraid.

The observation that a word satisfies my criteria does not entail
that it can be projected back to Pre-Basque.  It merely means that
I can't exclude it from my list -- a very different matter.

>  And if that one is included, then others with two voiceless stops
>  must not be downgraded on that basis, nor must it be argued
>  on that basis alone that they are non-native, borrowings or even
>  recent inventions.

But no one has suggested any such thing.  Wakey, wakey, Lloyd:
I do *not* exclude anything from my list on the basis of its
phonological form.  To do so would be self-defeating, since it is
the phonological forms of Pre-Basque which I am trying to recover.

>  But then one of the words for 'butterfly',
>  "pitxilota", is also a good candidate for inclusion.
>  Its four-syllable status does not by itself prove it to be
>  non-monomorphemic, though it may be.
>  Nor do the two voiceless stops prove it to be a loan.

Reality check, Lloyd.

No one has suggested that a four-syllable word must *ipso facto*
be polymorphemic.

No one has suggested that its phonological structure proves it to be
a loanword.

In fact, no one has suggested that it *is* a loanword.

So what are you talking about?

Finally, it is *false* to assert that <pitxilota> is "a good
candidate for inclusion" in my list.  It is a simply terrible
candidate, since it satisfies *no criteria at all*, apart from
absence from neighboring languages.

Oh, sorry -- it apparently does satisfy one criterion: Lloyd likes it.
;-)

Lloyd, if you think this word is a good candidate for inclusion
in my list, then you must have some criteria in mind -- criteria
which you haven't told us about.

The form <pitxilota> is recorded nowhere except in a very small area
of the Bizkaian dialect, and it does not appear to be recorded at all
before the 20th century.

So: what criteria are you appealing to in telling us that this word
is a good candidate for inclusion in my list?  May we know, please?

OK.  Enough again.  Maybe back later.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk