Plosive-liquid clusters in euskara borrowed from IE?

[Jon Patrick]

    Date:       Fri, 23 Apr 1999 17:12:32 +0100 (BST)
    From:       Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>

    On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Jon Patrick wrote:
   [LT]
    [on my claim that Pre-Basque did not permit plosive-liquid clusters]

    [A plosive is any one of /p t k b d g/;
    a liquid is any one of /l ll r rr/.]
    [JP]
    > Further to Larry's assertion that the plosive-liquid cluster was not
    > available in early euksara and have been elimenated I have found the
    > following entries made by Azkue that he asserts are native words.

I note that my original reference referred to native words and hence the
diversion of this response into "ancient" words is just that.

    [JP]
     Larry would you say that there is not one word in this list that is
    > not problematic for your thesis>, that is you can source every single
    > one of these words from outside euskara. I would be certainly
    > grateful for the source of each of them.
   [LT]
    Let's start with a couple of clarifications.

    First, I claim only that Pre-Basque did not permit such clusters.  In
    fact, these clusters apparently remained impossible in Basque for quite
    a few centuries after the Roman period, but eventually, under Romance
    influence, they became acceptable in Basque.  Today they are moderately
    frequent.

    Second, there is a big difference between a word which is *native* and a
    word which is *ancient*.  These two are independent.  For example:

    <snip>
    Third, Azkue does not claim that the words entered in his dictionary are
    native.  On the contrary, he declares explicitly, in section IX of his
    prologue, that he is entering words of foreign origin which are well
    established in Basque -- and a very sensible policy this is, too.
    It would have absurd to produce a dictionary of Basque which excluded
    such everyday words as <liburu> `book', <lege> `law', <bago> `beech',
    <diru> `money' and <eliza> `church', merely because these are of foreign
    origin.

As you presented in a later message and which arrived as I was preparing this
response the relevant section of Azkue's dictionary is Section XXIV.5, which
states that the words in uppercase are primitives or non-derivatives  "les
mots en capitales ou majuscules sont primitifs ou non derives" (pardon the
lack for accents)
These are the words I sent to you in the previous email. I believe my comment
"he asserts are native words" is a valid interpretation of his work. I was
particularly concerned that your first email did not reference this section
and was going to refer you to it. Now it appears that you are aware of the
section and was remiss in not referring to it in your first message.

   [LT]
    That said, I cannot possibly comment on every word in Jon's long list.

Why not? They constitute the whole corpus of material that Azkue has presented
which is contrary to your claim. I doubt that any such list has ever been
compiled before for basque scholars to investigate. Here is the perfect
opportunity for you to settle once and for all if your claim can be
substantiated. Do you have no wish to explore and re-investigate old knowledge
no matter how well established it is, in the light of new evidence? Is there
no  sense of true scientific exploration in your spirit where everything is
always up for reappraisal?

In terms of examples you have chosen and the tone of the remainder of your
message I can only say I feel you have totally compromised you usual high
standards of scholarship. You were asked:
" Larry would you say that there is not one word in this list that is
 not problematic for your thesis,..."

and you chose not to answer that question. Rather you selectively ignored the
bulk of the evidence and chose the most extreme examples of the total set to
covertly ridicule my attempt to explore and understand this claim and in the
end divert the topic to a comic play off on words. As basque scholars know,
you included, the Azkue dictionary has its flaws but it is also a fine piece
of scholarship, and you have applauded his work in your own book, so any
material based on his dictionary deserves close scrutiny, despite the fact we
know we will find some clear mistakes.
 I have seen many examples in this list and on other lists where you have
insisted that claims for phenomena are unjustified because there is no
supporting evidence. Yet in this case you are prepared to omit evidence that
can be rightfully presented for appraisal. Can we expect that on other
occasions you have also played fast and free with omitting legitimate evidence
for appraisal because it didn't suit your case?

yours
jon

[ moderator snip ]

Jon
______________________________________________________________
The meaning of your communication is the response you get