Re: floor

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> Alternatively, we could follow Kuhn and propose the existence of not one but two substrate layers for Germanic in the NWBlock area:
>
> 1 a non-IE language, called the ar-/ur-language by Kuhn
>
> 2 an IE language, spoken but for a short time before Germanic took over
>
> and assign the Germanic-like NWBlock roots to the latter, eg Meid's
> German flur, English floor, NWB placename Plore, OI lar "field"
>

Matasović reconstructs Proto-Celtic *fla:ro- 'floor', and he quotes Old Irish lár 'ground, surface, middle', although the semantic shift to 'field' is straightforward (cfr. Basque larre 'meadow', probably a Celtic loanword).

However, I'd prefer *p\ to Matasović's reconstructed *f , and I also wonder whether NWB <p> actually represented /p\/ and not /p/.

> (<- *plar-/*plan- <- *plaN- ?)
>
>
> Torsten
>