--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alexandru_mg3" <alexandru_mg3@...>
wrote:
>
> But even we take *pri as 'a presence' it doesn't
> help us to obtain *pric^ina meaning.
I hasten to agree to the extent that the distance from the attested
meanings of the Slavic word(s) and the relevant Rumanian item does
not seem to have been bridged satisfactorily, at least in the
postings I have seen.
My own posting was the fruit of sleeplessness and doesn't express
what I intended it to express, which was the following:
Although it is possible to derive the meaning 'cause' from the
meaning of the component parts of "pric^initi" and "pric^ina", that
meaning does not appear to be old, at least its oldest attestations
appear to post-date OCS by several centuries. Considering the
abstract meaning of the word there is a possibility that it arose in
learned circles.
On the other hand it is striking that Russian "pric^init'" 'cause'
(which stylistically feels like a Slavonicism and has the
corresponding stress pattern) is firmly associated with negative
phenomena such as pain, harm, sorrow, and loss. If that association
is already present in Bulgarian (the first place to look if you are
discussing the Slavic elements of Rumanian and the Church Slavonic
part of the Russian lexicon), the drift to the type of meaning
attested in Rumanian may become understandable after all.
> Everybody that considers *pric^ina as an inherited Slavic word
needs
> to start with the meaning of the PIE construction and not from
later
> variations.
IMHO there is no need to do that because it is obviously a productive
formation within Slavic.
Willem