"nightmare"

[Larry Trask]

Steve Long writes:

[LT]

> << The only Basque word for 'nightmare' in the 'creature' sense I know of
> is <inguma>.  This is pretty clearly of Latino-Romance origin, though
> the direct source would appear to be an unrecorded Latin *<incuba>,
> an altered form of the familiar <incubus>.  So far as I am aware, the
> Basque word is unmarked for sex, and it translates both 'incubus' and
> 'succubus'. >>

> Larry, what ending would you have expected from the Latin -us?  By that I
> mean, the "-a" is not expected from the latin "-us? -- what would normally be
> there?

A Latin noun is normally borrowed into Basque in its accusative
singular form.  Assuming that the accusative of <incubus> would
have been <incubum>, the expected Basque treatment of this would
be *<ingubu>, without nasalization, or *<ingumu>, with nasalization.
But I don't know what inflectional class <incubus> belonged to.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

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