`zebra'

[Max W Wheeler]

On Sat, 24 Apr 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> 	A Latin derivation seems to the most likely --of those presented--
> but the road seems pretty rocky. This word must have bounced around among
> different languages to get the form it has. Given that the initial vowel
> was dropped from ecebra with <c> = /c/. I'm wondering if the word was
> perceived by Spanish speakers as an Arabic word or if indeed it did pass
> through Andalusian Arabic as something like S-b-r, th-b-r, dh-b-r, DH-b-r,
> z-b-r, although I suppose the latter would only apply to a certain
> attribute.

But this pass via (Andalusian) Arabic is unnecessary if what we want to
account for is the form <zebro> OSp /dzebro/. In *eciferum <c> would
palatalize/affricate before a front vowel > [ts] and would lenite to
[dz] intervocalically, as would /f/ > [v]. The second <e> would be lost
by syncope in a post-stressed non-final open syllable. <-um> > /-o/ is
entirely regular, as is short <i> > /e/. That gives us /dzevro/. Now we
sometimes find, without it being exactly regular, /br/ or /rb/ for
expected */vr/ or */rv/. A case in point would be <Iberum> > Ebro
(intervocalic <b> normally lenited to /v/ in OSp). The aphaeresis of
<e-> is the most irregular feature, but not all that surprising, and not
assisted by the Andalusian Arabic story.
	The above is precisely why Romance philologists proposed
*eciferus. The <equi-> > *eci- remains ad hoc.

Max
___________________________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler <maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975; fax: +44 (0)1273 671320
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