Aspiration in Basque

Abstract

The distribution of aspiration in Basque -with 'aspiration' referring to both the occurrence of [h] and of aspirated stops -shows some puzzling aspects. In some words, aspiration is ancient, in the sense that it must be assumed for the earliest reconstructable stage. In some other instances, however, it has arisen seemingly ex nihilo, as can be observed in borrowings from Latin and Romance, e.g. Latin/Romance īra > Basque hira 'ire', Romance taula > Basque thaula 'board'. Most surprisingly, in some words aspiration has developed after a sonorant consonant, e.g. Romance solatz > Basque solhas 'conversation'. Aspiration may also continue intervocalic /n/, e.g. Latin anāte > Basque ahate 'duck'. Another unusual development is the phonologization of the contrast between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops triggered by a shift of the stress in some words without affecting the properties of consonants. Finally, an interdialectal alternation /k-/ ~ /g-/ ~ /h-/ ~ ∅ in demonstratives and related adverbs appears to have involved fortition, contrary to initial expectations. Here we describe the environments in which aspiration is found in Basque and discuss the most likely historical developments that could have given rise to the state of affairs that we find, paying particular attention to what would appear to be unusual or unnatural sound changes. We build on prior scholarship, but this paper also contains some new hypotheses, especially regarding the aspiration in words like ahate 'duck'. We have also tried to contribute to the dating of the different processes and to the understanding of in their causes.

On the comparative method, internal reconstruction, and other analytical tools for the reconstruction of the evolution of the Basque language: An assessment

“…gallo-rom /oneʂt/ > nBq onhest 'honest', rom /ʂola(t)s/ > nBq solhas 'conversation', etc. (Hualde 2018).…”

“…yákin 'to know', yárri 'to put', etc. (Hualde 2018). given these facts, presumably we could reconstruct a word-initial hiatus from interdialectal comparison as well, although in a more indirect way than through internal reconstruction.…”

The reconstruction of Old Common Basque accentuation: Closing open issues

“…regarding the distribution of aspirated stops, the facts are more clear: word-initially (in words of two or more syllables) they appear as aspirated essentially only in borrowings (Hualde 2018b), although not necessarily in the same borrowings that have marked accent in the Western-Central area. Mitxelena suggests that the lack of aspiration of the stop in bake 'peace', mortuak 'desert', lekoa 'league', arku 'arch', etc.…”

Bilinguals produce language-specific voice onset time in two true-voicing languages

“…Basque and Spanish 'voiceless' plosives reportedly have short lag VOT (Hualde, 1991) but might still have possible differences. Basque 'voiceless' plosives used to be aspirated, mostly in monosyllabic words (e.g., ke [kʰe], 'smoke'), and loanwords (e.g., pentsa [pʰents̺ a], 'think'; Hualde, 2018). These historically aspirated words are now produced with short-lag VOT in modern Standard Basque and most of its dialects.…”