Basque <ibili>

[Larry Trask]

Rick Mc Callister writes:

[on the possibility of a Celtic source for Basque <ibili> 'be in motion']

[somebody else]

>> Of course the i-prefixed verbform is an argument /against/ borrowing from
>> Celtic.

> Maybe, maybe not. The prefix could have been added after borrowing
> --but ask a specialist in Basque, don't take my word on it

The big problem here is the seemingly great difficulty of borrowing verbs.
Edith Moravcsik, in her universals of borrowing, goes so far as to declare
that verbs cannot be borrowed at all.  This is probably going too far --
after all, English did borrow verbs from Norman French (didn't it?).

But, as a rule, when verbs are borrowed at all, they are borrowed only
as non-finite forms -- participles or verbal nouns -- which are then inflected
periphrastically in the borrowing language, with finite auxiliaries
carrying all tense, agreement, and other verbal categories.

This is how Basque borrowed verbs from Latin, and how it borrows verbs from
Romance.  It is how Turkish borrowed verbs from Arabic and Persian, and
how it borrows verbs from French and English today.  It is how Old
Japanese borrowed verbs from Chinese, and how modern Japanese borrows
verbs from English.

But Basque <ibili> is inflected synthetically, not periphrastically.
It has a full set of finite and non-finite forms.  Consequently, it doesn't
look a good bet to be a borrowed verb.

The same goes for the other Basque verbs mentioned, like <ekarri> 'bring',
also inflected synthetically.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk