Plosive-liquid clusters in euskara borrowed from IE?

[Larry Trask]

On Fri, 10 Sep 1999, Jon Patrick wrote:

[on Basque <buru> `head' and <margo> `color']

> I don't see anything at all unreasonable about your position. I
> fully agree that the meaning you have cited above should not be used
> in a analsysis of basque phonology. Nor is that inconsistent with my
> statement that if we have reliable evidence about the history of the
> word it should be used in preparing these lists. However, Azkue
> reports a 2nd meaning of it a "river fish" from Zuberoa and its use
> as a variant of <margol> from Bizkaia. Perhaps that may justify
> still including the word in the list - what do you think?

Well, the strictly Zuberoan word <margo> `gudgeon' is hardly likely to
be the same word as the putative <margo> `color'.  I would immediately
suspect a loan from Gascon or Bearnais, but I lack the resources to
pursue this in my office.

Azkue cites <margol> as a local Bizkaian name for a kind of sea snail.
Again, I don't see how this can be related to <margo>.

Now, Azkue *does* try to relate Hervas's <margo> to the Bizkaian word
<margul> `faded, washed out'.  But this can't be right.  There is no
trace of evidence in Basque for a privative suffix of the form *<-ul>,
or indeed for a suffix of this form at all.  In fact, <margul> has
precisely the form of an expressive adjective denoting a defect.  Such
adjectives are found all over the country, though any given one is
generally confined to a small area.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk