reversal of merger, proposal (2)

[Larry Trask]

Alexis Manaster Ramer is temporarily cut off from this list because of a
fault, and so he's asked me to forward the posting below.  If you want
to reply, please reply to him and not to me.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
 
 
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 08:30:21 -0500 (EST)
From: manaster at umich.edu
To: Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: reversal of merger, proposal (2)
 
I think that there is at least one alternative.  Truly
expressive forms are often pronounced somewhat differently
from non-expressive forms with the same phonemes.  As Labov
points out, for example, the f-word in English often has
the /f/ made with the lower lip tucked in.  Sapir's
paper on "abormal speech" in Nootka contains several
examples.
 
What would fit
all the facts cited is the theory that there were two
somewhat different articulations of what is written
as <x>, which I will write as <x1> and <x2>, and that
only one of these, (x2), went to <j>.  Note that the strikingly
anomalous development of <gixaxo> to <gixajo>, *<gijajo>,
can be explained if we assume that, once the force of the
dim. suffix -<xo) was lost, it became <gix1ax2o) whence
<gixajo>.
 
Another possibility is that the expressive <x>'s that do
not change to <j> are due to interference from other dialects.
There is in general little doubt that many expressive
features do come from external sources. E.g., in Polish
a few words which normally have <e> get <i> in expressive
forms, at least for some speakers, e.g., <dziewka>, an
obsolescent word for 'young female servant' vs. <dziwka>
roughly 'whore', <bieda> 'poverty' vs. <bida>, used to
express sympathy or the like when talking about some
particular people's poverty, etc.  In this case, we
happen to know that <e> and <i> are different dialect
realizations of older /e:/, which earlier in the century
were in competition for standard status.  In general, <e>
won this fight, thus making <i> eminently suitable to
an expressive function.
 
On Thu, 26 Nov 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> 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.
[snip]
> 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.
[snip]
> 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
[snip]
> 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.