--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:
>
> Other words that have devoicing and some odd r/l alternations :
>
> Perg-ola : *bhelg
> related to balcon and latin fulk-rum
>
Actually, this "alternation" can't be explained within the standard IE theory but as different outputs of the same Nostratic root.
That is, Latin
pergula derives from
*perg- 'board, beam', which also gives English
fork. In a Nostratic framework, this root would be in turn cognate to
*bhelg´- 'beam, prop'. But Latin
fulcrum would imply a root
*bhelk-. This suggests to me the velar stop was probably a glottalic
*k', probably some kind of suffix (aka "root extension"). Hence we've got two presumably cognate roots
*pVr-g- ~ *bVl-k'- (making abstration of IE ablaut with regard to vocalism).
The bare stem
*pVr- (Latin
pari-e:s 'wall') is reflected as Proto-Altaic
*p`árà 'cross-beam, constructing place'. Notice in particular that Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu have a nasal suffix as in
*parra(n) and Greek
phálanks, whose structure is similar to Mongolian
*(h)aran-ga 'balcony, veranda, platform, shed' and Literary Manchu
faraNga 'lattice(d)'.
Hence I assume the forms
barra, *parra(n), *parrVk, *sparr- are different reflexes of a Paleo-European substrate loanword derived from the forementioned root (with optional nasal and velar suffixes). NB: I prefer this model to the "all-from-PIE" view of Arnaud Fournet, who thinks this is a "Kartic" substrate language where PIE
*l > rr (for more details see his
paper).