Re: floor

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "o_cossue" <o.cossue@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Then if laverca is from NW Iberia, it's probably from Old Suebian.
> > > As you remember the Suevi ruled NW Iberian c. 409-584.
> > >
> >
> > Yep. Anyway, Frison la:sk forces a reconstruction *laiweziko:n, with
> > z rather than with r.
> >
>
> The -s-/-r- (<- *-z-) alternation means the word should go on Schaffner's list of Verner-affected nouns in Germanic
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65931
> which I suspect are really loans from Venetic
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65034
> The presence of a derivative of *laiw- in Finnish (or perhaps the language of Tacitus' Fenni) points to the same neighbourhood.

The North Frisian form underwent syncope, preserving the /s/. This suggests to me that its immediate protoform was Belgic/NWB, while the other Germanic forms continue a direct loan from Venetic. That is, Belgic syncopated its own borrowing from Venetic (as I have suggested to explain <Venta> in Britain). NWB loanwords in NFris are not hard to understand.

To my mind, the overwhelming bulk of the words on Schaffner's list are native Germanic, and the discrepancies we find in 'berry' and the like are not diagnostic of substratal origin.

DGK