Etymological Dictionary of Basque - Cryptm.org

44 R. L. Trask
8. Some morphological observations and problems
Collected here are some morphological and word-class observations and some morphological
puzzles which show up in several words.
M1. Pyrenean initial velars
Words with initial /h/ in the dialects retaining the aspiration consistently have initial zero
in the remaining dialects. The same is largely true of the several demonstrative stems, all
of which have initial /h/ in the aspirating dialects, but the three Pyrenean dialects (R S A)
frequently have instead initial /g/ or /k/ in these stems, and only here. For example, ****
M2. Fluctuating plosives
A number of word-forming suffixes exist in two forms: one with initial /t/ or /k/, the other
with no initial consonant. Examples include -tar / -ar ethnonymic, -keta / -eta activity,
and -kume / -ume ‘offspring’. In addition, some suffixes with initial voiceless plosives
appear to be cognate with independent lexical items lacking the plosives: -koi ‘fond of’,
ohi ‘custom’. The reason for these alternations is not known. Some of these may once
have contained initial voiced plosives which have dropped after a vowel and devoiced
after a consonant, producing the observed variants. For example, -tar / -ar may derive
from *-dar.
M3. Extraction of suffixes
{**** See the entries under extraction of suffixes in the Subject index.}
M4. Loss of final /a/
This is not a phonological change, but an analogical one. The Basque article is -a
(singular), -ak (plural): gizon ‘man’, gizona ‘the man’, gizonak ‘the men’. When this
suffix is attached to a word ending in /a/, then, in all varieties but B and Z, the two vowels
simply coalesce: neska ‘girl’, neska ‘the girl’, neskak ‘the girls’. This has often led to
uncertainty about whether a given word does or does not end in /a/, and hence a final /a/
has sometimes been analogically removed. For example, gorotza ‘dung’, whose definite
form is also gorotza, has been re-formed to gorotz in some varieties, and katea ‘chain’,
from Lat. catena(m), is kate in some varieties.
M5. Bizkaian final /e/ lowering
This is not a phonological change, but an analogical one. In B, the addition of the article
-a to a word ending in /a/ causes the first /a/ to raise to /e/, by P34: hence, with neska
‘girl’, the definite form is neskea, rather than common neska. The alternation between
definite neskea and indefinite neska has, in B, often been extended to words originally
ending in /e/. So, for example, common lore ‘flower’ and ote ‘gorse’, definite forms lorea
and otea, appear as lora and ota.