RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

> > > Finno-Ugric
> > > 'Hungarian féreg, férge- worm; vermin; noxious animal |
> > > Komi perk Phthirius pubis |
> > > Mansi peerk worm.'
> >
> > Either of Mansi or Komi may be a loan from the other. Or we can explain both with *-rkk-, but that would not produce -g- in Hung.
> >
> > > Maybe I'll add this
> > > fi permu (, perma)
> > > larva of gadfly (Oedemagena, Hypoderma, etc.);
> > > tuber on the body of an animal,
> > > containing such a larva |
> > > osN pir&m gadfly;
> > > boil caused by larva (beneath the skin of reindeer);
> > > pîrm&n, (of reindeer hide:) with holes caused by gadfly larvae.
> >
> > Once we get into gadflies & such, Uralic also has *parma, in Finnic, Mari and Khanty at least; and Samic *poaró. Mordvinic puromo fits better together with the latter. Comparision points for this side of semantics are to be found on the IE side too.
>
> Erh? How did you compute those points?

For "worm", Permic is expected to change *rk > r. Actually, the semantic difference between Komi and Mansi is likely a hindrance for direct loaning.

*parma is represented regularly by Finnic *parma, Mari *paarmo and Khanty _puur@... Mordvinic *u and Samic *oa are both normally from *o.

On the IE side it is German _Bremse_, Swedish _broms_ that seem like possible connections (and Lithuanian _sparva_ ??)

> > Also plain "fly":
> > F. *kärpä- (Livonian käärmi), Mo. karvo, Ma. karme
> > with an irregular (non-inherited?) cluster.
>
> Metathesis k - p?

I would rather consider the possibility that the "(gad)fly" words come from a root of the shape #kwarPa- (with #P some labial), specifically "fly" from a de-labialized descendant #karPa, and "gadfly" from a de-velarized #parPa. By the semantics we expect these words to be closer related than the "worm" group.

> It would seem we have two suffixes, -k and -m. -k is a NWB suffix too. -m is part of the Caland set.

I'm not sure if plain -m works. Substrate loans in western Uralic commonly include the correspondence of Mordvinic /v/ vs. /m/ elsewhere (for example "linden", "fog": F. lehmus, sumu ~ Mo. levos, suv). However here we have /p/ in Central Finnic. Unless the Livonian form with the expected /m/ means that *p is a later (onomatopoetic) variant?

Besides, these are common consonants. Suffixes of similar shape would be expected to exist in numerous languages (including within Uralic itself).

> > Finnic has probably affectiv fronting.
>
> Affective... hm.
> Is that similar to the *vëlki/*volki alternation you mentioned to
> me?

> Torsten

No, this is a reasonably common Finnic-internal process, not unlike the "expressiv palatalization" in Basque.

John Vertical