12-09-03 01:47, Abdullah Konushevci wrote:
> Slavic <slab> 'weak', to my view, is just prefixed form of <lab> (cf.
> <labav> 'slow', <labavo> 'slowly'). Prefix s- is very random in
> adjectives, cf. <miran> 'quit, calm', <smiren> 'calmed down', giving
> to them an intensive meaning.
> The PIE root *le:b-, according to Pokorny, and *leb-, according to
> Watkins, derives in Alb. verb <lëpij> 'to lick', noun
> <lapër> 'dewlap', wattle, gill', <lapërdhar> 'scurrilous person',
> <lapërdhi> 'scurrility', etc.
You confuse two things here. The first is the Slavic _prefix_ *sU-
(originally always with a yer!) meaning basically 'with', but often
merely expressing the perfective aspect of verbs, like Germanic *ga- or
like Modern English <up> (as in <eat up> or <gather up>). It doesn't
normally occur with primary adjectives, but it is extremely frequent in
past (passive) participles, as in your 'calmed down' example.
What we find in *slabU 'weak', however, is not a Slavic prefix but
(posssibly) the so-called "mobile *s", as in PIE *teg-/*steg- 'cover'.
Its origin is not quite clear, but at any rate the phenomenon goes back
to PIE and whatever its original function (possibly expressing
intensiveness), it had no meaning in Proto-Slavic -- it was just a
linguistic fossil by that time. If *slabU is related to Germanic *sle:p-
'sleep' and Lat. la:bor 'slip, fall down' (most etymological
dictionaries suggest this connection; in Latin *sl- > l-), one should
probably reconstruct it as *sloh1bo-, although such a root shape is
somewhat problematic because of the rarity of PIE *b. We perhaps have
the same root without the mobile *s in Eng. lap 'a piece that hangs
down' < OE lappa < *lapn- < *l&1b-n- (?). It's also possible that we're
dealing with an old cluster of phonaesthetically rather than
etymologically connected expressive roots.
Piotr