Long monomorphemic Basque words

[Larry Trask]

Lloyd Anderson writes:

> Trask writes:

>>  I am only interested in monomorphemic words, and
>> monomorphemic words tend to be short, while long words tend to be
>> polymorphemic, in Basque as in all the languages I know anything about.

>> Consequently, Lloyd's objection could only constitute a problem for me
>> in the following scenario:

>>    Pre-Basque had lots of long monomorphemic words as well as short
>>    ones, but, for some reason, the long monomorphemic words have been
>>    generally lost from the language, while the short ones have
>>    preferentially survived.

>> And I don't see this as a plausible scenario.

>  When reworded slightly, I find it highly plausible indeed.

How?  Why?

>  It is not that the long monomorphemic words have been generally lost,
>  it is that Trask's criteria exclude them from his considering them as
>  early Basque (this has been discussed in many other messages, one a
>  cumulation of 9 ways in which his criteria might usefully be modified).

Oh, no -- not this again! ;-)

Lloyd, this is not true.  My criteria are independent of phonological form,
and therefore they cannot possibly systematically exclude words of any
particular phonological form.

>  It is one respect in which the totality of Trask's criteria embody a bias
>  against certain vocabulary
>  not justified by careful linguistic methodology.

And just what "careful linguistic methodology" would you put in place of my
explicit criteria?

Lloyd, I have asked you this question countless times now, and you have
still refused to answer it.  You just keep muttering darkly that there must
be something wrong with my criteria, but you have *never* advanced any other
explicit criteria.  Now have you?

If you want to pursue this matter, will you *please* finally now spell out
the criteria you think we should be using?  Mine are on the table: where are
yours?

Should any given Basque word, such as <tximeleta> 'butterfly' or <tutur>
'crest', be included in my list or excluded from it?  And on the basis of
what criteria?

Answer, please -- and now.

As far as I can see, I'm already being maximally careful, while you're
urging me to throw caution to the winds and to toss all sorts of implausible
things into the Pre-Basque basket just because it pleases you to see them
there.

>  Under Larry Trask's criteria for inclusion in his data set,
>  some polysyllabic monomorphemic words, a set which would
>  generally include all but the most common expressives,
>  are disproportionately disfavored for written records
>  because of their meanings.

Really?  And what leads you to believe this?  What evidence do you have to
support such a conclusion?

>  Although "txitxi" 'chick' is perhaps recorded early
>  (Trask did not say otherwise in his message dealing with it),
>  Trask says it sticks out a mile.
>  I assume he means the two voiceless stops,
>  and the voiceless stop initial.

Some confusion here.

First, <txitxi> has two affricates, and it is pronounced rather like English
'chee-chee'.

Second, <txitxi> does not mean 'chick': it is a nursery word meaning 'meat'.

The word for 'chick' is usually <txito> or <txita>, with variants <xito> and
<txitxa>.  This word is recorded from 1571 -- very early, by Basque
standards.  It will probably satisfy my criteria and go into my list.  But
it will indeed stand out a mile, with its peculiar phonological form.  And
the origin of that peculiar form is obvious: this is a word of imitative
origin.  It has the same motivation as the English word 'cheep'.  And, by
the way, there is a British word 'cheeper', meaning 'chick (of a game
bird)', recorded from 1611.  And, of course, there is the American word
'peeper' for a certain kind of cheeping frog.

>  Words for 'butterfly' probably were also not recorded early,
>  among many others.

Well, *one* word for 'butterfly' is recorded in 1562 -- very early by Basque
standards.  That word has disappeared completely from the language.  The
most widespread word today is only recorded from 1912, and apparently did
not even exist in 1905.

Lloyd, what conclusions do you draw from observations such as these?

My conclusions are clear: words for 'butterfly' in Basque are overwhelmingly
of expressive origin, and they are unstable and subject to frequent
alteration and replacement.  Accordingly, they are useless as evidence for
Pre-Basque.

>  Some of those for 'butterfly' are monomorphemic,
>  at least under the sensible understanding that the
>  so-called reduplication is not a separate morpheme
>  unless some word exists with it removed, rather
>  the reduplication is a part of the shape of the root of
>  a number of expressive words.  Half of a reduplicated
>  form is not a functioning morpheme in such cases.
>  Trask has argued that the endings of some of these words,
>  such as /-leta/ etc. are not suffixes, not analyzable
>  as productive Basque morphemes.  If so, the forms are
>  monomorphemic.

Arguably, yes, but there is a problem in that the first elements often
recur.  Recall the cases like <txitxipapa>, <txitxidola>, and <txitxitera>,
all 'butterfly'.  The first element recurs, but the second elements are
unique to these individual words.

Anyway, consider an English parallel: say, 'ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay'.
How many morphemes would you say were present in this word, and what are
they?

>  I do not in this message deal with the question whether
>  the forms in question are reconstructible back to early Basque,
>  that is a different question from whether they are
>  monomorphemic.

Indeed, but I can answer the question anyway.  There is *no* evidence that
any of the numerous words for 'butterfly' can be reconstructed back to
Pre-Basque, and there is a great deal of evidence against any such view.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk