From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18598
Date: 2003-02-08
----- Original Message -----
From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 4:39 PM
Subject: [tied] something
> 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?
Russ. c^ego /tSivó/ is the genitive of <c^to> /Sto/ 'what'. The latter word, with prefixed <ni->, means 'nothing', and with <ne-> (OCS <ne^->), 'something'. The underlying root is Slavic *c^I-/*c^e- < *kWi-/*kWe-, the PIE interrogative pronoun.
Piotr