The Sound Shape of Language [book]

Roman Jakobson, Linda R. Waugh
2002 unpublished
This work is centered on the role of the Basque language as an immediate factor on the origin of Castilian suffixation in -VrrV. It is therefore a research dealing with the contacts between the Basque and Castilian languages. It promotes a perspective anchored in the conviction that both philologies neither have ever existed nor will exist isolated. If they yielded to temptations to assume their isolation and ignore their linguistic vicinity, then the philologies of both languages would risk
more » ... hold to extremes of deficiency and doctrinal impoverishment. The subject of Basque's influence on Castilian suffixation in -rr-1 represents a significant case of Basque influence on a Romance language. It is enough to mention three elements: (a) the number of words involved consistent with the particular value and abundance of -rr-words in Basque, (b) the bilingual environment that entails the interaction of both languages in the past, and (c) the extension of the phenomena's geographic boundaries. In Castilian we find many words displaying -rr-in their syllabification and pronunciation. Many of them, fundamentally bi-syllabic words, seem to have a Celtic origin: carro, porra, jarro, perro. But many other words, especially those with more than two syllables, are loans from Basque. Such words, once they become assimilated to Castilian, go on to model many other derived terms in the Romance language, generating a rich Romance suffixation in -VrrV. The group of Romance suffixes in -rr-includes fundamentally those in -arrV, -irrV, -orrV and -urrV, as well as the variants -arriV, -orriV, -urriV, -irriV. In consideration of their consonantal pillar they all fall under the common categorization of suffixes in -rr-.
doi:10.1515/9783110889451 fatcat:vjejvjlpjffptinfemm7o67lqm