Slavic *ljuby and the heterogeneity of the inflectional class in *‐y

The inherited Proto-Slavic feminine nouns in nom. sg. *‐y, oblique *‐ъvare conventionally thought to go back to one source only, namely Proto-Indo- European stems in *‐uh‐. However, a handful of previous studies have already demonstrated the possibility that other inherited items could join this paradigm by phonologically developing a nom. sg. in *‐y from other sources (particularly *‐ōs). Accordingly, in the present article, it is hypothesized that the well-known PSl. noun *ljuby *ljubъve f. ‘love’ may go back to an amphikinetic s‐stem *lewbh‐ōs. Such a reconstruction makes it possible to explain a number of otherwise problematic features of the complex of *ljuby, such as: 1) the enigmatic OCS acc. sg. ljuby (for expected ljubъvь) in the collocations (prě)ljuby (sъ)tvoriti or (prě)ljuby dějati ‘commit adultery’; 2) the unexpected presence of *‐s‐ in the Balt. cognate, Lith. liaupsė̃ f. ‘praise, adoration’; 3) the occurrence of PSl. *‐y as an abstract marker (a function in which PIE amphikinetic s‐stems in *‐ōs are securely, even if marginally, found, particularly in the domain of emotions and mental states - cf. Gk. αἰδώς αἰδόος f. ‘reverence, awe’, ἔρως *ἔροος m. ‘love, desire’, Ved. bhiyás‐, Av. biiah‐ m. ‘fear’ - while no such function can convincingly be reconstructed for a formation in *‐u‐h2)

Art · Class (philosophy) · Cognate · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Noun · Praise · Slavic languages · Theology · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Psychology

• The Prehistory of the Proto-Slavic Abstract Suffix *- ostь and its Baltic Congeners

  Marek Majer•Scando-Slavica•2021

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