Abstract
ABSTRACTIn Basque, there is evidence, especially in early loans from Latin, that a sequence #DV(R)T… where D is a voiced stop and T is a voiceless (aspirated) stop was optionally produced with devoicing of the first of these stops. An additional particularity of this sound pattern is that the devoiced word-initial stop typically surfaces with aspiration, while the previously aspirated stop loses it: #DV(R)T(h)… > #T(h)V(R)T… This typologically uncommon sound pattern has been described as assimilation of voicelessness in the literature, or spread of [-voiced]. I propose that this sound pattern is triggered by aspiration, not voicelessness, and that it is a case of metathesis, not assimilation. Under the proposed analysis, aspiration of the second stop in the word is reanalysed as originating in the first stop, an instance of perceptual metathesis. This approach accounts for the distribution of aspirated stops before and after the optional change, and the failure of post-sibilant stops to trigger. This account also has implications for the chronology of aspiration-loss in Western dialects: at the time the earliest Latin loans were borrowed, all Basque dialects still maintained a historical series of aspirated stops. Only later, after this process of optional metathesis, did the Western dialects lose *h and stop aspiration.
Highlights
In previous literature, this sound pattern has been analysed as phonological longdistance assimilation of voicelessness or [-voiced]
I suggest that the variants in Table 2 are a consequence of perceptual metathesis (Blevins and Garrett, 1998: 510–527; 2004: 121–125; see Egurtzegi, 2011; 2014: §8.2 for more examples in Basque), a sound change by which the aspiration in the onset of the second syllable was interpreted by listeners as originating in the initial stop
This sound pattern of word-initial devoicing of stops followed by a stop in the syllable seems to be found in all Basque dialects, but initial stop aspiration is only observed in the Continental varieties, which provide the primary evidence for this proposal
Summary
An important factor in understanding the distribution of voiced and voiceless obstruents in the history of Basque relates to a feature of inherited Basque vocabulary: inherited historic forms suggest that in Common Basque, the stage of the language that preceded modern dialectal division (roughly placed in the fifth– sixth centuries, see Michelena, 1981 [2011]), the T-series of voiceless stops were prohibited from occurring word-initially, though they were licit word-medially, after vowels and sonorants in pre-vocalic position (Michelena, 1977 [2011]: 200). Most of these are compound words or derived forms where the voicelessness of the initial consonant of the second member is a consequence of regular historical compound-boundary devoicing (e.g. ogi bil > ogbil > oTbil > op(h)il). A further mystery is the failure of expected metathesis to occur in several common words which, superficially, satisfy the structural description of the change, like native bete ‘fill, full’, and gertu ‘sure, ready, nearby’ (
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