On Sat, 8 Feb 2003 16:39:50 +0100, "alex_lycos" <
altamix@...>
wrote:
>Piotr, I was just thinking about this slavo-romance pseudo(?)-relation.
>In a previos mail I told you about the expresions in Romanian which are
>given as being derivative from Latin but they are foneticaly and
>semanticaly close to slavic.
>Two of them have been:
>something = 'ceva' (c^eva) and I pointed to russian 'cevo'(c^evo)
>some = 'niste' (niSte), regional 'neSte'= the Latin expresion
>"nescio quid"='I dont know what' and I pointed to
> slavic words like Serbian 'neSto'
>
>Which are the roots for the Slavic words in this case?
The word "what?" is Slavic c^I-to (*kWid + *tod), gen. c^eso
(*kWesyo), ^cego (in my view: *kWeod > *keo > *c^e(h)o).
The nom/acc form c^Ito becomes c^to, which develops somewhat
irregularly in the different languages (Russ c^to /s^to/, Ukr. s^c^o,
Bul. s^to, SCr. s^ta``, s^to``, West-Slavic co). The genitive is
Russ. c^ego (/c^Ivó/), Ukr. c^ohó, SCr. c^èga, Cze c^ego, Pol. czego.
Only Slovenian has retained the form c^Ésa (but nom./acc. káj).
The indefinite ("something") was Slavic nê'-c^I-to (Russ. néc^to, SCr.
nès^to, Cze. nêco), while the negative ("nothing") was *ní-c^I (Slov.
nìc^, W.Slav. nic), *ní-c^I-to (Bul. nìs^to) or, with the partitive
genitive, *ni-c^egó (Russ. nic^egó).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...