QUESTIONS OF THE HISTORICAL AND ETYMOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE BALTIC AND SLAVONIC LEXICON

• Authors: Khramov Yu. W.
• Languages of publication: RU

Abstracts

EN

The author discusses etymology of Latvian: 'suns' (dog; he-dog), dialectal 'suo' - as a bidding word and of archaic 'kuna' (she-dog), seeking their origin in Indo-European name of the dog: *keu-on. He stresses that according to the centum - sataem theory 'suns - kuna' represent a centum - sataem copy. It is quite obvious that there exist different semantic connections between 'centumic' and 'sataemic' words. One of the types of such connections is gender and species differentiation: 'suns' is a gender word and 'kuna' is a word describing the species, 'suns' in the meaning of he-dog describes a species of animals. The meaning of 'kuna' (she-dog) is secondary, similarly the primary meaning of '*sun(i)os' is simply dog, he-dog being secondary one. It is because of that in the Indo-European prehistoric language the names of animals mean zoological species only without differentiation of gender: males and females have no separate names. The formation of an equipollent opposition *sun(i)os (he-dog)~ kuna (she-dog) can be traced with kind-gender differentiation in the Baltic languages only, where nouns that mean creatures differentiated according to gender acquire names according to being male or female. A special diagram is presented to sum up author's views. In his opinion the existence of centum - sataemic pair in the Baltic languages has not yet proved the gender-species differentiation between centumic and sataemic word. Originally centumic and sataemic words were semantically equal. But in the course of time they develop different semantic ties due to the species-gender differentiation, which finds its expression in equipollent and in privative oppositions. The author discusses also etymology of the slavic name of dog and connects it with the Latin 'pecus' (domestic animal) and analogous forms. At the same time he does not deny the possibility that the class name dog has proceeded from the colour of the animal's fur. He also holds that the expression 'sukin syn' originally was a patronymic unit. Lexical units of the type 'Sorokin, Mukhin' are patronymic in the history of the Russian language.

Keywords

EN

BALTIC LEXIS; ETYMOLOGY; SLAVONIC LEXIS

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Journal: Acta Baltico-Slavica
• Year: 2004
• Volume: 28
• Pages: 109-136
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Khramov Yu. W.

• Yu. W. Khramov, Riga, Latvia (for more details, contact the journal editor)

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

04PLAAAA0018392