Re: semantic shift

From: tolgs001
Message: 20541
Date: 2003-03-29

altamix wrote:

>I explained in the first text I posted. I quote:
>
>"DEX means, an ancient meaning should have been
>"clar"= >clear. I don't know where this "ancient meaning"
>of "clear" was found in the Romanian texts"

This is not correct. "învechit" means "old-fashioned",
i.e. not necessarily completely out of use. It does not
mean "ancient". The Romanian word for ancient is
"antic" or, in many contexts, "stravechi".

So, the entry you find in your DEX (which is - I assume
the same as in my older version of the same thick
dictionary of the Romanian language, which contains
plenty of old-fashioned vocabulary, too, namely of such
vocabulary that was en vogue in the 19th century) you
have to understand this way: the adjective "chiar, chiara,
plural chiari, chiare" hasn't yet disappeared, but is
quite rare, old-fashioned. (They should've added -- as
Horia pointed out -- that "chiar" as adjective is still in
use in some regions, i.e. in some subdialects. As
well as the fact that in certain subdialects, the
adverb "chiar" has the variant "chiarã" which looks
like the feminine adjective.)

>There is no "din chiar senin" but "din senin din iarbã
>verde" and that is all.

Well, that's bad that DEX's authors (1975) dropped the
idiomatic "din chiar senin".

>There is _no inherited_ variant there. Hör auf bitte!

It's high time you once and for good realized that you
are by no means in a position of saying "no" and
"hör bitte auf!", let alone of rejecting (based on what?)
conclusions by generations of genuine scientific
researchers (both in Romania and abroad).

George