Pre-Basque phonology (fwd)

[roslyn frank]

>From: Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
>Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 12:34:57 +0100 (BST)

>On Mon, 6 Sep 1999, Roz Frank wrote:

>[on the reconstruction of Pre-Basque]

[LT]

>Hualde has since developed his position in an article.  In fact, he does
>not challenge Michelena's reconstructed phoneme system at all.  Rather,
>he proposes to assign different phonetic features to the proto-phonemes.
>In particular, while he agrees with Michelena that Pre-Basque had no
>voicing contrasts in word-initial plosives, he believes that the voicing
>of initial plosives was facultative, rather than phonetically
>consistent.

[snip]

[RF]

Could you explain a bit more what is meant by the term "facultative" as
opposed to "phonetically consistent" by giving a few examples?

[big snippet]

>> bat/

[LT]

>And <bat> `one' is pretty clearly derived from earlier *<bade>.

[RF]

This is an example that I've never fully understood. There is no attested
evidence, to my knowledge, for any form like *<bade> and quite obviously
it's a reconstruction. It it not, therefore, the reconstruction that
eliminates this item from consideration as a monosyllabic parent-stem?

>> /behi/

[LT]

>But <behi> `cow' is two syllables in the aspirating dialects.

>> /bein/behin,

>And <behin> `once' is also two syllables in the north.  The dialects
>which have lost the aspiration have, as a result, acquired a number of
>new monosyllables which are still bisyllabic in the north and which were
>formerly bisyllabic in the south.  I don't count these as ancient
>monosyllables, with good reason.

[RF]

Again, doesn't the logic of this statement rest on the presupposition
(within the reconstruction) that the aspirating northern dialects are the
original ones, i.e., the ones showing us the "mother" forms (at least for
this type of item) and the monosyllabic unaspirated southern variants the
"daughter" forms? In other words are there not two choices: 1) to assume
that the "older" form was monosyllabic and that the aspirated variants are
innovations and, hence, came from a suprasegmental element, namely,
aspiration, which was not found in the phonological system of the
"older-parent"; or 2) as you have reconstructed it, to assume that the
"older" form was bisyllabic and that the non-aspirated variants are
innovations.

Could you explain the rationale for choosing 2 over 1, particularly since we
have no other sources for reconstructing earlier stages of Euskera than the
information coded into the dialects themselves? Here I refer to the fact
that the Basque reconstructions cannot draw on comparative data from other
members of a larger language family, e.g., as in the case of IE studies.

You end your discussion above by adding "with good reason". Could you
elaborate?

I am curious because your position (see below) concerning word-initial /h/
is that it is of suprasegmental origin, although it, too, is considered
primarily a northern characteristic if I am not mistaken.

>[LT]

>>Potentially the most serious problem is the /h/, but I know of no one at
>>present who disputes M's conclusion that *most* instances of /h/ are of
>>suprasegmental origin.  However, it remains possible to disagree about
>>whether *some* /h/s are of segmental origin.  In practice, though, this
>>isn't much of an issue, and we can readily dispose of any difficulties
>>by reconstructing Pre-Basque -- contra M -- with a *phonetic* [h] in our
>>transcriptions, allowing users to draw their own conclusions.

>[RF]

>Examples?

{LT]

Sure.  For <orri> ~ <horri> `leaf', Michelena reconstructs *<oRi>, with
his fortis rhotic.  If we prefer, we could write *<[h]oRi> instead.
It probably makes little difference, so long as we are consistent.

[RF]

Does it follow, therefore, that we could also write <behi> as *<be[h]i> or
as *<bei>?

Keep in mind, I'm not trying to support any particular interpretation here,
rather I'm attempting to understand the logical process involved in
constructing an argument that gives priority to forms found in one dialect
over those found in another. Specifically, I am interested in examining the
kinds of argumentation utilized when the comparison in question is intended
to lead to a reconstruction where no parent-form of the language is
available (no triangulation) as is the case at hand.

Izan untsa,
Roz