Original scientific paper

Proto-Slavic *dětę/dětь and Hittite tēta

Metka Furlan orcid.org/0000-0001-7531-6489 ; Inštitut za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša

Abstract

The external comparative evidence, namely the PIE *dhéH1i-to- > ProtoAnatolian *tḗdo- > Hittite tēta- n ‘breast, teat’ < *‘that what is suckled’ indicates that in the Slavic relation *dětę (western, southern) : *ditę (eastern) the second link *ditę has the original root-vocalism, but the first one dětę secondary, i.e. analogical, due to the influence of the Proto-Slavic causative *doti which also caused that the seme ‘to suck (mother’s milk)’ was replaced by ‘to breastfeed, to give to suck’. Proto-Slavic *dět/dit and *dtь are substantivized adjectives of the type *moldъ adj. → subst. *moldę and *zelenъ adj. → subst. *zelenь. The full-grade vocalism of the Proto-Anatolian *tḗdo- and of the original Proto-Slavic *dítъ (> *dtъ) from the null-grade PIE verbal adjective *dhH1i-tó- ‘such one who is sucked’ (cf. Sanskrit dhītá- via metathesis) is the consequence of the lengthening of its root-vocalism, better known from the relation between Sanskrit jātá- ‘born’ and Proto-Germanic *kinÞa- ‘child’.

Keywords

Proto-Slavic; Hittite; etymology; word-formation; Proto-Indo-European; lexicon

Hrčak ID:

227093

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/227093

Publication date:

28.10.2019.

Article data in other languages: croatian slovenian

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