The etymological nest *dati in the Slavonic language: reconstruction, word formation, semantics

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study of vocabulary from Indo-European root *dō- in the Proto-Slavonic language.

As a result, the following was performed:

1) reconstruction of etymological nest with vertex *dati ‘give; the process of transferring of an object to another person in relation to the pre-Slavic state based on the use of materials of etymological dictionaries comprising the later Slavonic language – «Etymological dictionary of Slavic» edited by O. Trubachyov and «Słownik prasłowiański» edited by F. Slavsky;

2) description of the methodology for etymological nests built by the type of a word-forming nest, principles of the making and design were developed by A. N. Tikhonov in “Word-formation dictionary of the Russian language”;

3) lexicographical parameterization of an etymological nest in the form of a diagram, which shows the word-formation and semantic relations of the words;

4) description in terms of various aspects housing cognate words in terms of semantics, derivation, their morphemic composition and morphological characteristics;

5) in the Slavonic nest, there are 4 semantic word-building centers, which underwent deetymologization in the old Russian language and formed the independent word-formation nests: verbial: *dati, *damъ ‘give’, and three nominal: *danь ‘tribute to file’ as the obligatory transfer of the object as a ransom fee, tax, *darъ ‘gift’ as a voluntary transfer of an object as a gift, remuneration and a noun nomen acti *datja ‘giving, bringing a gift’.

The author hopes that this list of major lexical associations in successive historical levels in the language development can play an important role in the system view on the formation and dynamics of the world picture of the native speakers of this language.