Old Polish “Chocia” and “Chociaj”

the source of polish chocia and chociaj, both functioning as concessive subordinating conjunctions, has been the subject of a moderately large amount of scholarly literature. One will find listings of most of the important items in Max Vasmer's Russisches etymologisches Worterbuch (Heidelberg, 1958), III, 268 under xotja, and in Franciszek Siawski's Slownik etymologiczny jczyka polskiego (Krakow, 1952-6), I, 73 under choc. As Slawski has pointed out, the words would seem almost certainly to be formed from the theme of the verb chciec (archaic choclee) wish, cf. Latin quamvis, German obwohl. Certainly attempts like Osten-Sacken's in Anzeiger fur indogermanische Sprachund Altertumskunde (1911), XXVIII, 36, to derive chocia from an inflected form of choc cannot be regarded as successful. Nevertheless, Slawski observes, it is uncertain with what form of the verb chocia and chociaj are most closely related. Jan Los in Rocznik slawistyczny (1911), IV, 245-6, has argued that chocia is in origin a native Polish form of the nominative singular masculine of the present active participle of chociee. He explains the ending -a as modeled after the type of ending we find in the form reca, which is attested in the Kazania swictokrzyskie. He maintains that chocia, in view of the antiquity of its attestations, could not be a borrowing from East Slavic. However, Jan Rozwadowski, who had earlier, Rocznik slawistyczny (1909), II, 4, shared this viewpoint, on maturer reflection pointed out, in Jan Los, Jan Rozwadowski, Aleksander Bruckner, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and Tytus Benin's Jczyk polski i jego historia z uwzglcdnieniem innych jczykow na ziemiach polskich (Krakow, 1915), I, 368-9, that the evidence for a present participle ending in -a in Old Polish is too fragile to build on. I believe that a careful consideration of the evidence will force one to agree with this conclusion whether one accepts the counter-theory that Rozwadowski proposes or not. More recently the question has been reopened by Zenon Klemensiewicz, in collaboration with T. Lehr-Sptawinski and S. Urbanczyk, in Gramatyka history czna jczyka polskiego (Warszawa, 1955), 502^-3. He notes die existence in Old Polish of the set of conjunctions choe

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