Hungarian Historical Phonology alom

alom 'Unterstreu'

First attestation/Old Hungarian data

[coming]

Important dialectal forms

alam, widely found in dialects (see ÚMTSz I: 207, s.v. alom)

Uralic/Ugric/Pre-Hungarian reconstruction

PUg *e̮lama

UEW: PUg *ala-ma (alɜ-mɜ) 'padding in shoes (made of hay), bed of straw; Einlage im Schuh (aus Heu), Unterstreu'

Status of the Ugric etymology

Convincing

Loan etymology

None suggested

Cognates suggested in earlier research

Khanty: East (Trj) i̮ʌəm 'Einlage im Schuh (aus festem Heu), Brandsohle', South (DN) itəm, North (Kaz) ĭʌəm 'Einlage im Schuh (aus Heu Filz)' < PKh *i̮ʌəm

Commentary

The Ugric etymology is regular: both Hu a and Khanty *i̮ correspond regularly in Uralic *e̮ - a stems (see Zhivlov 2014: 124). It has been assumed (see UEW) that this word might be a derivative of Uralic *e̮la- 'down, under'. While this is semantically a plausible idea as such, it is not clear what is the denominal *mV suffix assumed by the UEW (it is not clear whether such a suffix can be reconstructed; a deverbal suffix *-mA can be reconstructed to Proto-Uralic but the evidence for a homonymous denominal noun suffix is scarce).

Conclusion

A convincing Ugric etymology.

References

UEW s.v. ala-ma (alɜ-mɜ): PUg Uralonet

(Zhivlov 2014)