Re: Back to conlanging
| From: | Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, March 20, 2006, 8:51 |
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I've looked it up, and if you got your information from Trask then he
seems to only claim that roots (rather than stems) have only one or the
other of t(s), t(z)... affix harmony is not the general rule (and
inflectional affixes never show any harmony), although sometimes it does
occur in fossilized root + affix combinations and/or old compounds. And
palatals don't take part in the harmony at all...
So basically, as I said, Basque may have had active harmony at some
point, but the changes are mostly fossilized now rather than forcing
changes in things like inflectional affixes (unlike, say, the nasal
harmony of some Amazonian languages).
>> Basque has sibilant harmony. Sibilants or affricates
>> within the same word must be all apical _(t)s_, all
>> laminal _(t)z_ or all palatal _(t)x_. Thus Spanish
>> _Francés_ is borrowed as _Frantses_ rather than
>> **Frantzes.
>
>
> See eg. txistu (flute) for a counterexample. Also sortzen (creating)
> and other words... I have to admit that roots with mixtures of (t)z
> and (t)s are not exactly common, but if Basque did have sibilant
> harmony it's no longer an active process, in the dialects I know at
> least. Since I know practically nothing of the French dialects, things
> could be different there...
>
>
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