Hualde's view

[Larry Trask]

Roz Frank writes:

>  Larry, what you describe Hualde as proposing doesn't seem to coincide with
>  the contents of the paper that I read. As you may recall, the last time you
>  paraphrased Hualde's position, saying that he argued that Pre-Basque had
>  facultative voicing, Hualde himself wrote a response to the list. Yet I
>  notice that you are repeating the same thing again here. So I'm confused.

In the quoted passage, Hualde elaborates somewhat on his views, but the
fundamental point remains the same.  In Michelena's view, Pre-Basque
permitted only a single labial plosive word-initially, */b-/.  This */b-/
develops regularly into modern /b-/, except in circumstances in which it
becomes /m-/.  Similar remarks apply to the other plosives.

As far as I can see, Hualde agrees in not recognizing a "robust" (his word)
contrast between */b-/ and */p-/ in initial position in Pre-Basque, though
his view of the phonetics is different from Michelena's.

But the crucial difference is as before: Hualde allows Pre-Basque */b-/
to develop variably into /b-/ and /p-/ in the modern language.  He has
elaborated on his account of this, but he doesn't seem to have changed
his central view.

[quote from Hualde]

>  The problem of the ancient Basque plosves, as stated by Martinet and
>  others before him, can be summarized as follows: " How come  Basque, which
>  has a robust opposition between voiceless and voiced oral stops in
>  intervocalic position, shows a much weaker contrast in word-initial
>  position?" From Martinet's structuralist standpoint this is a problem
>  because the word-initial position is supposed to be the one where the
>  greatest number of contrasts is found in any language.

OK; I'll try to respond to this.

The view attributed here to Martinet is not one which most linguists,
structuralist or not, would defend to the death.

Look at English.  English has three contrasting nasals in medial and final
position, but only two in initial position.  English has an [esh]-[ezh]
voicing contrast in fricatives word-medially (even though the functional
load is low), but not initially.  And nobody seems to think that this
is intolerable or impossible.

>  To solve this
>  problem, Martinet made up a story that has to do with an ancient contrast
>  between fortis and lenis stops which was later somehow replaced by the
>  modern voiced/voiceless contrast. Michelena adopts a version of this
>  hypothesis, which has become the standard account.

Correct.

>  My view is different. Basque differs from most languages presenting
>  assimilation in voice across morpheme- and word-boundaries in that it is
>  the morpheme- or word-initial consonant that assimilates to the preceding
>  morpheme- or word-final one, instead of the other way round. So in Basque
>  /s+d/ becomes [st], etc., whereas in, say, Spanish, /s+d/ becomes [zd].
>  E.g. the initial /d/ of <dator> "s/he is coming" becomes /t/ in [estator]
>  "s/he is not coming", [menditi(k)tator] "s/he is coming from the mountain",
>  etc. Or, to give you another example, whereas <buru> "head"starts with a
>  /b/, the same morpheme starts with /p/ in, say, [ajspuru] "stone head".

Agreed.

>  Nowadays, there is little chance that Basque speakers will identify initial
>  [p] and [b] as allophonic variants,  bacause of (a) their familiarity with
>  Spanish or French and

Indeed, but, in the standard account, it is widely suspected that it was
largely the influence of Romance which led to the introduction of voicing
contrasts into initial plosives in Basque.

>  (b) because the assimilation rule tends to apply only
>  in restricted phrasal contexts. BUT assuming that this assimilation applied
>  more frequently in the past (as  Michelena also assumes) it stands to
>  reason that if <tator> and <dator>, <buru> and <puru>, and so on for lots
>  of plosive-initial words, are variants of the same word in different
>  phonological context, this would inevitably lead towards a merger of the
>  voiced and voiceless oral stops in morpheme- and word-initial position
>  (where the alternation is found) but not morpheme-internally. End of the
>  story. The more complicated Martinet-Michelena hypothesis (which in
>  addition requires an unexplained transformation from ancient to modern
>  Basque) is, in my view, simply not needed and has no serious evidence in
>  its favor. Thanks for allowing me to clarify my position.

First, I query that word "unexplained".  The standard account holds that
the explanation was mainly Romance influence.  This influence led to the
introduction of contrasts like <kai> 'wharf, quay' (a loan) and <gai>
'material' (a native word), and <pare> 'pair' (a loan) and <bare> 'slug'
(zool.) (and other senses) (native).  This doesn't look to me like the
absence of an explanation -- though of course no one is obliged to buy
this explanation.

Second, why is this version less "complicated" than Michelena's?
Michelena posits a Pre-Basque with no initial voicing contrast, developing
under Romance influence into modern Basque, with initial voicing contrasts.
Hualde appears here to be proposing a Pre-Pre-Basque with initial
voicing contrasts, followed by a "merger" resulting in a Pre-Basque with no
initial voicing contrasts, followed by modern Basque, once again with initial
voicing contrasts.  This is simpler?

>  Are we talking about a terminological problem? I mean when you use the term
>  "facultative" does it correspond to what Hualde describes. In other words,
>  does the following sentence by you mean the same thing or infer the same
>  thing that Hualde has stated?

>>  Pre-Basque had facultative voicing: that is, they could be realized,
>>  indifferently, either as [b d g] or as [p t k] -- "indifferently",

>  Stated differently, and please excuse me if I'm being obtuse, can the terms
>  "facultative" and "indifferently" be used to refer to a situation in which
>  the voicing is conditioned by certain phonological constraints, i.e., that
>  the voicing was phonological consistent when those constraints were
>  present. Could it be that you are saying the same thing as Hualde but I
>  don't understand the terminology that you are using.

Yes, I *think* we are saying the same thing -- namely, that, in Pre-Basque,
the voicing of initial plosives was non-contrastive.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk