About the alpende, alipende, lipendi y achiperre voices

Abstract

The main object of this article is to study the spanish words alpende, alipende, lipende, -i and achiperre (and variants archiperre, achiperre, etc.), once used in living speach, but today less and less usual in ordinary language. The word alpende, ‘shelter, outhouse, junk room’ is the origin, with anaptyctical /i/, of alipende, ‘rogue, scoundrel’, but also ‘useless, silly’, with semantical evolution ‘junk room’ > ‘junk’> ‘rogue, silly’. This word has apparently changed into lipende, of identical meaning, by aphaeresis of /a/. On the other hand, the origin and meaning of achiperre (and variants), “tool, junk”, but also applied to human beings, seems more unlike to be achieved. Nevertheless, it seems possible that achiperre could be a variant of *aliperre with substitution of initial syllabe in order to intensify its meaning with the well-known prefixes archi- and cachi-.