On CJ, other NW languages, & Haitian Creole borrowing <pot> as /pot/

[David Robertson]

LhaXayEm, qhata khanawi-lhaksta?

Looking through a Haitian Creole vocabulary today, I noticed that the
French word <pot> was taken into that language as /pot/.  The final /t/ is
pronounced, in other words.  Npoqinishcn Spokane Salish, as well as at
least some varieties of CJ, appear also to have gotten a form of the word
having the final /t/.

The reason this interests a linguist is that if the French word <pot> is
pronounced in isolation (the "citation form"), it sounds like /po/.  The
final "t" sound would only be pronounced in running speech, closely
verbally connected with a following word that happened to start with a
vowel.

Haitian Creole also has a word /plat/ "plate, dish" from French <plat>.
Again, we would expect H.C. to have /pla/ instead of a form with a
pronounced final consonant.

A rule which both H.C. and CJ adhere to, in different degrees, is that
words which in French have a silent final consonant in their citation
forms show up in those same forms in the borrowing language.
Consider CJ /lisash/ "angel(s)" < ("from") French <les anges>;
	    /lipwa/ "peas" < Fr. <les pois>;
	    /lida/ "tooth; teeth" < Fr. <le(s) dent(s)>;
	    /lilu/ "wolf" < Fr. <le loup>

It's interesting to wonder *why* languages borrowing French words would
mostly borrow them in their citation forms, without the final consonant,
but in a few cases borrow words *with* their underlyingly present final
consonants.  Could it be that the exceptional cases occurred when the
French word was learned as part of a stock phrase?  An example of what I'm
thinking would be if say "pot-au-feu" were a more commonly used term in
the situation of cultural contact than "pot".

Lhush pus nEsayka tEmtEm tEnEs-hayu ukuk.
Dave

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