reversal of merger, proposal (2)

[Larry Trask]

People are asking me about this, so I'll spell it out a bit.
 
The case is made for a development in the Gipuzkoan variety of Basque,
by Luis Michelena, in his magnum opus Fonetica Historica Vasca and
elsewhere.
 
Note the following orthographic conventions in Basque:
 
        <z> = laminal [s]
        <x> = English <sh>
        <tz> = the affricate [ts]
        <tx> = English <ch>
        <j> represents the glide [j] (= US [y]) historically,
                but today represents a variety of consonants,
                according to dialect, derived from this glide
                by strengthening.
 
Basque possesses a set of palatal and palato-alveolar consonants which,
historically, never occur in ordinary lexical items, but only in
expressive variants of these items and in expressive formations
generally.  For example, <zezen> `bull' has an expressive variant
<xexen> `little bull', and <zoko> `corner' has the expressive variant
<xoko> or <txoko> `nook, cosy little place'.  Such expressive
palatalization was formerly pervasive in Basque, and it survives today
in some varieties.
 
Originally, therefore, the consonants <x> and <tx> (among others)
occurred *only* in such expressive forms, and nowhere else at all.
But then the language acquired new instances of <x> in ordinary lexical
items, by borrowing, as in <xaboi> `soap' and <axola> `care, attention,
concern', both borrowed from Romance.  These were not expressive
variants or forms, since they had no other form.
 
Meanwhile, the historical glide /j/ was undergoing fortition in most
dialects to some kind of consonant.  The result differed according to
region, but, in much of the country, it became a voiced palato-alveolar
fricative [ezh], similar to French <j>.  This is still the state of
affairs in the eastern extremity of the country.
 
In the center of the country, however, and particularly in the Gipuzkoan
dialect, this fricative underwent devoicing to [esh} (English <sh>),
thus merging with the historical <x>.  This is still the state of
affairs today in some southern parts of Gipuzkoa: complete merger.
 
In most of Gipuzkoa, however, there was a later change: <x> (that is,
[esh]) was backed to velar [x] or to uvular [X], a change which was
apparently borrowed from Castilian Spanish, which underwent the same
development.
 
Now, we might have expected *all* instances of <x> to undergo this
backing, but that's not what happened.
 
Instances of <x> derived from earlier /j/ underwent backing.  Hence
native <jaun> `lord', <jan> `eat' and <jabe> `owner', which had
historically contained the glide, underwent backing, and their modern
Gipuzkoan forms are <[x]aun>, <[x]an> and <[x]abe>, with velars or
uvulars.
 
Instances of borrowed <x> also underwent backing, and so borrowed
<xaboi> and <axola> became <[x]aboi> and <a[x]ola>, also with velars or
uvulars.
 
But instances of *original* (that is, expressive) <x> did *not* undergo
backing, and so expressive <xexen>, for example, has remained <xexen>,
with the sound of English <sh> and no backing.
 
Hence Gipuzkoan has apparently first merged historical /j/ with <x> and
then reversed the merger, so that only non-historical instances of <x>
underwent backing.
 
Now, one might suppose that the merger never really took place, that the
two sounds somehow remained distinct until after the backing of one of
them had occurred.  But Michelena argues against this as inadequate.
 
For one thing, the backing observed in loan words shows that these words
must have contained the same sound that developed from original /j/.
For another, those varieties that failed to undergo the backing
invariably exhibit a complete merger.  But there's more.
 
In one or two cases, the expressive value of <x> had apparently been
lost -- and *these* instances of <x> *did* undergo backing.
 
Consider the word <gizon> `man'.  This has the regular combining form
<giza->, and this in turn has the regular expressive variant <gixa->.
>From this <gixa->, Basque formed a derivative <gixaxo> `poor fellow',
with the rare diminutive suffix <-xo> (diminutive suffixes, being
intrinsically expressive, always contain the special consonants).  And
this <gixaxo> has developed in Gipuzkoan to the unexpected <gixajo>, in
which the first instance of <x> has failed to back while the second
instance has undergone backing to the velar/uvular [x]/[X], notated <j>.
 
Michelena's explanation is therefore the following.  Instances of <x>
which were expressive in nature clearly retained their expressive
function, and hence they remained palato-alveolar and did not undergo
backing -- because they were part of a wider system of palatal and
palato-alveolar consonants confined to expressive forms.  All other
instances of <x> -- that is, those derived from /j/ and those in loan
words -- lacked this expressive value and hence could and did undergo
backing.  In the case of <gixaxo>, the expressive value of the first <x>
remained obvious, and hence this did not back.  But, perhaps because of
the rarity of diminutive <-xo>, the expressive value of the second <x>
was lost, and so this one underwent backing.
 
This account seems to explain the facts admirably, and, to my knowledge,
it has never been challenged.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk