non-IE/Germanic/h

[Max W Wheeler]

[ snip note to moderator ]

On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> Would you like to explain what your point is?

> 	falda in Spanish is "skirt" or "flank" [of a mountain]. Skirt is
> obviously the basic meaning

> 	As I pointed out, it can't be a native word in Spanish

> 	BUT I was asking whether the form /alda, alde, halda/  might exist
> in Old Spanish, Aragonese or Gascon. As you know, like Spanish, Gascon also
> changed initial /fVC/ > /hVC/. Aragonese sometimes does this; although
> descriptions of Aragonese sound pretty lame. If such a form did indeed
> exist, either of these COULD have provided a source for Basque "alde, alte".

> Now, what's YOUR point?

> >Sp. falda is a Germanic borrowing into Romance (It., Oc., Cat., Ptg,
> >falda). Coromines suggests from Frankish *falda `fold', cf OHG falt. ME
> >fald, related to Goth falthan, OHG faldan, OE fealdan, ON falda `to
> >fold'; related by Onions to PIE *pel/*pl- with a *-t- extension; cf. Gk
> >dipaltos, diplasios `twofold', haploos `simple'; Lat plicare `to fold'.

> >Max W. Wheeler <maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk>

In his 7th March post Rick Mc C mentioned a resemblance between the
Basque forms _halde_. _alde_, etc. `side' mentioned in his _haltha_
entry (On-line dictionary ... non-IE/Germanic) and the Spanish word
_falda_ `skirt, etc'. Since Larry Trask (01/03/99) had already pointed
out that the Basque evidence pointed to _alte_ as the earliest
recoverable form of the word in Basque, I understood Rick to be
speculating on whether the Basque word (in one of its forms) might be
the source of Spanish _falda_. My reply was intended to rebut this
speculation by mentioning the well-known, and to my mind pretty
convincing, etymology of _falda_, showing it to be of good IE stock, and
therefore out of place in the context of substrate vocabulary.

It seems he meant rather to suggest that the Romance word might be a
source of the Basque. But quite apart from the semantic problems, there
are 3 phonological mismatches, each of which would need an ad hoc
account, viz. f- > h-/0- (very rare shift, except before /o/; Michelena,
Fonetica Historica Vasca para. 13.3), -d- > -t-, and -a > -e. This is
not greatly improved by searching out a Spanish form _halda_ (though
this is apparently attested). Gascon _hauta_ would be a marginally
better bet, formally. But Larry had already cast doubt on the
reliability of the supposed Basque form with initial _h-.

Anyway, it's not quite true that _falda_ 'can't be a native word in
Spanish'. According to Penny, History of the Spanish Language, once the
contrast between [f-] and [h-] became phonemic, there was a fair amount
of lexical diffusion. Other 'native words' with retained /f-/ are:
_fiero_ `proud', _feo_ `ugly', _faltar_ `to lack', _fallar_ `to fail',
_fiesta_ `festival', _fiel_ `faithful', _fin_ `end', and, among
Germanisms, _feudo_ `fief', _forro_ `lining'.

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
___________________________________________________________________________