Lith. “šiẽnas”, OChSl. “sěno” ‘hay’ and IE “*kei-” ‘to lie’

АСТА LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA XLIX (2003), 1-3 Lith. šienas, ОСІ. ѕёпо ‘hay’ and IE *kei- ‘to lie’ ROMUALDAS J. APANAVICIUS Vilnius Lith. šiēnas and OChSI. ѕёпо ‘hay’ are traditionally connected with Greek (Hesych.) roa “6otoz’, but no reliable etymology has been proposed as far. Here a connection with the IE root *keito lie’ is suggested. In this article a new explanation is proposed for Lith. šiēnas, Latv. siens and its Slavonic cognates ОСҺ]. séno, Rus. сено, Serb.-Cr. sijeno, Pol. siano (Vasmer 1987: 601). Most authors dealing with these words (Trautman 1923: 297; ME,, 1927-1929: 859; Pokorny 1959: 610; Fraenkel 1965: 980; Vasmer 1987: 601 etc.) merely repeat Рег Persson’s (1893: 257) suggestion according to which Lith. šiēnas, OChSI. séno could be related to Gr. (Hesych.) xotva ‘убртос; Grass’ (<*koi-no-, possibly neuter plural). Persson wrote: “Uber die wurzel von xowd, lit. szénas, abg. séno mēchte ich nicht entscheiden” (“As to the root... I would not like to commit myself”) and he repeated the idea of Fick and Brugmann according to which the words under discussion could be connected with Olnd. syānd- ‘trocken geworden’, šīnd- ‘geronnen’, though Persson thought that the meaning ‘hay, grass’ could not be old. Būga (1959: 170) reconstructs Balt. *šeina-n (according to him OChSI. séno < IE *koino-m would correspond to Lith. *šainas). Karulis (1992: 177) supposes that the word for ‘hay’ corresponds to an IE root *keiunderlying colour terms such as Lith. šyvas,šēmas ‘grey (of a horse)’. The evidence adduced below allows us to reconstruct a Balto-Slavic archetype *seiпа | saina (neuter gender). The phonetical correspondences point to an initial *$- which manifests itself in Lith. šienas and appears in a number of Baltic-Fennic loanwords as h- < *§- (Fin. heind, Est. hein, Veps. hein, Vot. eind and SEst. hain, Liv. aina, Sam. suoid'ne; cf. Thomsen 1891: 223; Buga 1959: 170; Stang 1966: 54). The same correspondence is observed in Fin. лете ‘pea’ from a Baltic word reflected in Lith. žirnis 'id” There are two reflexes of the root vocalism, viz. -eiand -ai-, as far as we can judge from the evidence of the Baltic-Fennic loanwords (cf. Fin. heind, Est. hein as opposed to SEst. hain, Liv. aina) as well as from Old Church Slavonic ѕёпо < *$аіпа. The attested Baltic forms Lith. šiēnas, Latv. siens yield no evidence as to the original diphthong because Lithuanian and Latvian ie can also go back to *ai: cf. Lith. diévas ‘Сод’ : Fin. taivas, Est. taevas ‘sky’, Lith. piemuo ‘shepherd’ : Gr. хоту, Fin. paimen ‘shepherd’ etc. This 2 | ROMUALDAS J. APANAVIČIUS entitles us to assume that both forms (*<еіпа and *šaina) could have coexisted in the old Baltic and Slavic dialects (though not both in the same dialect). OChSI. sėno and Fin. heind point to a neuter gender ending Balt. *-a (cf. Fin. silta : Lith. tiltas ‘bridge’, OPr. assara-n, Rus. озеро: Lith. ēžeras Јаке’) which is discussed in Mažiulis (1970: 84-87). A derivational analysis reveals a root *$ei-/šaiand a suffix -naas in Lith. bērnas, Latv. bērns, Got. bairns ‘child’ : IE *b'er- ‘to carry’ (Gr. ёро, Lat. ferre, Goth. bairan etc.). I would like to venture here that Lith. šiēnas, OChSI. séno derive from the IE verbal root *kei- ‘to lie, liegen”. IE kei- ‘to lie, liegen’ is attested in most IE languages: Hitt. kitta(ri), Olnd. seté, Gr. xeīrau ‘liegt’; with m-suffix: Olr. соіт ‘еб’, Goth. haims ‘Dorf, Flecken’, Lith. šeima (> Fin. heimo), Latv. saime, Rus. семья ‘family’, OPr. caymis, Lith. kdimas ‘Dorf’, kiémas, Latv. ciems ‘Dorf, Versammlungshaus’, with uo-suffix: Olnd. ševdh “таш, freundlich, lieb, wert’, Lat. civis ‘Biirger’, Goth. heiwa-frauja ‘Hausherr’, ОНС. hiwa ‘Gattin’, Latv. siēva “Weib' (Pokorny 1959: 539-540; Rix 2001 s.v.). An overview of Baltic words derived from the IE root *kei- ‘to lie, liegen’ (not mentioning Lith. šiēnas, OChSI. séno) is given in Mažiulis (1993 s. у. caymis; 1993 s. у. keytaro), Toporov (1980 s. v. caymis). The argumentation I have to offer in support of this hypothesis is based on the following semantic considerations. (i) To the above examples we could add Lith. šiekstas, šieksta “tree or bush lying іп the water’ (ЕК2... 735—737), Latv. sieksts, siēksta (< *$ei-sta-) (Karulis 1992: 176-177), which could also be related to IE *kei- ‘to lie, liegen' and show a certain similarity to Lith. šienas with respect to their derivational model. (ii) Goth. hawi, Germ. Неи, Engl. hay, Swed. дӧ ‘hay’ and Germ. heuen, Engl. леу, Swed. hugga ‘to cut hay’ derive from Proto-Germ. *kau-i/u-o- ‘that which is cut, that which is to be cut’ (Onions 1966: 431, 439), which can be traced back to IE *keh u- ‘to cut, schlagen’ (Rix е.а. 2001 5. у.). Now if we accept the assumption that that which is cut is lying down, a semantic connection can be established between Proto-Germanic *kau-i/u-o- ‘that which is cut, that which is to be cut’ and Balt. (or Balto-Sl.) *seina/ Saina, and in that case we could attempt to connect the latter with IE *kei- ‘to lie, liegen’. The Germanic tribes could have imagined hay as the grass which has been cut (and is therefore lying to the ground) whereas the Old Baltic (and Slavic) tribes could have imagined it as the grass which is lying down after cutting (cf. Lith. pjauti šieną ‘to cut the hay’ and kirsti rugius ‘to cut the rye’). Of course, such a comparison would require more typological parallels from other languages. As far as Gr. (Hesych.) xowa ‘grass, hay’ is concerned, it would be possible to assume a similar origin and structure (*koi-nofrom the IE root *keireflected in i The use of different verbs for ‘cutting the hay’ and ‘cutting the rye’ was pointed out to me by Prof. Vytautas Maziulis (p.c.). LITH. šiēnas, OCHSL. ѕёпо ‘HAY’ AND IE *kei- “TO LIE” | 3 Gr. xeīrat), but, on the other hand, its similarity to the Baltic and Slavonic words could also rest on a mere phonetic and semantic coincidence. ABBREVIATIONS LIV — Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. Die Wurzeln und ihre Primārstammbildungen. Unter Leitung von Н. Rix, unter der Mitarbeit vieler anderer bearbeitet von M. Kūmmel, Т. Zehnder, К. Lipp, В. Schirmer. Zweite, erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage bearbeitet уоп M. Kimmel und Н. Rix, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2001. LKZ - Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 1-XX, Vilnius, 1941-2002. МЕ - Karla Mūlenbacha latviešu valodas vārdnīca 1-1V. Rediģējis, papildinājis, turpinājis J. Endzelīns, Rīga, 1923-1932. REFERENCES BUGA, К. 1959: Rinktiniai raštai 2. Sudarė Z. Zinkevičius, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla. i FRAENKEL, Е. 1965: Litauisches etymologisches Worterbuch 2, Heidelberg: Carl Winter. KARULIS, K. 1992: Latviešu etimoloģijas vārdnīca 2, Rīga: Avots. Mažiuris, V. 1970: Вайц ir kity indoeuropiečių kalbų santykiai (deklinacija), Vilnius: Mintis. MaAŽIULIS, V. 1993: Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas 2, Vilnius: Mokslas. ONIONS, С.Т 1966: The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Edited by C. T. Onions with the assistance of G. W. S. Friedrichsen and R. No. Burchfield, Oxford: University Press. PERSSON, P. 1893: Etymologisches. Beitrāge zur Kunde der indogermanischen Sprachen (Bezzenbergers Beitrāge) 19, 257-283. POKORNY, J. 1959: Indogermanisches etymologisches Worterbuch 1, Bern-Mūnchen: Francke. STANG, CHR. S. 1966: Vergleichende Grammatik der baltischen Sprachen, Oslo-Bergen-Troms9: Universitetsforlaget. THOMSEN, V. 1891: Beroringer mellem de finske og de baltiske (litauisk-lettiske) sprog, Kobenhavn: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Tororov, V. N. 1980: Лрусский язык. Словарь, I-K. Москва: Наука. TRAUTMANN, К. 1923: Baltisch-Slawisches Worterbuch, Gēttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. VASMER [ФАСМЕР], M. 1987: Этимологический словарь русского языка 3, Москва: Прогресс. Romualdas J. Apanavičius Gauta 2003 10 30 Laisvės рг. 42-159, 04341 Vilnius, Lietuva