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

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA XLIX (2003), 1-3 Lith. šienas, OChSI. séno ‘hay’ and IE *kei- ‘to lie’ ROMUALDAS J. APANAVICIUS Vilnius Lith. Siénas and OChSI. séno ‘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 *kei- “o lie’ is suggested. In this article a new explanation is proposed for Lith. Siénas, Latv. siens and its Slavonic cognates OChSI. séno, Rus. cero, 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 Per Persson’s (1893: 257) suggestion according to which Lith. šiėnas, OChSI. séno could be related to Gr. (Hesych.) xowa 'yopros; Grass’ (<*koi-no-, possibly neuter plural). Persson wrote: “Uber die wurzel von xowd, lit. szénas, abg. séno mochte 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 discus- sion could be connected with OInd. syand- ‘trocken geworden’, šind- ‘geronnen’, though Persson thought that the meaning ‘hay, grass’ could not be old. Būga (1959: 170) reconstructs Balt. *§eina-n (according to him OChSI. séno < IE *koino-m would correspond to Lith. *$ainas). Karulis (1992: 177) supposes that the word for ‘hay’ corresponds to an IE root *kei- underlying colour terms such as Lith. Syvas, šėmas ‘grey (of a horse)’. The evidence adduced below allows us to reconstruct a Balto-Slavic archetype *sei- na | saina (neuter gender). The phonetical correspondences point to an initial *$- 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. Thom- sen 1891: 223; Buga 1959: 170; Stang 1966: 54). The same correspondence is obser- ved in Fin. herne ‘pea’ from a Baltic word reflected in Lith. žirnis id.” There are two reflexes of the root vocalism, viz. -ei- and -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 séno <*§aina. The attested Baltic forms Lith. šienas, Latv. siens yield no evidence as to the original diphthong because Lithua- nian and Latvian ie can also go back to *ai: cf. Lith. diévas ‘God’ : Fin. taivas, Est. taevas ‘sky’, Lith. piemuo ‘shepherd’ : Gr. mowuny, Fin. paimen ‘shepherd’ etc. This 2 | ROMUALDAS J. APANAVIČIUS entitles us to assume that both forms (*Seina and *šaina) could have coexisted in the old Baltic and Slavic dialects (though not both in the same dialect). OChSI. séno and Fin. heind point to a neuter gender ending Balt. *-a (cf. Fin. silta : Lith. tiltas ‘bridge’, OPr. assara-n, Rus. o3epo: Lith. éZeras ‘lake’) which is discussed in Mažiulis (1970: 84-87). A derivational analysis reveals a root *§ei-/Sai- and a suffix -na- as in Lith. bérnas, Latv. bėrns, Got. bairns ‘child’ : IE *b'er- ‘to carry’ (Gr. gėpo,, Lat. ferre, Goth. bairan etc.). I would like to venture here that Lith. siénas, OChSI. séno derive from the IE verbal root *kei- ‘to lie, liegen’. IE kei- ‘to lie, liegen’ is attested in most IE languages: Hitt. kirta(ri), Olnd. seté, Gr. xeirai ‘liegt’; with m-suffix: Olr. coim ‘lieb’, Goth. haims ‘Dorf, Flecken’, Lith. šeima (> Fin. heimo), Latv. saime, Rus. cembsa ‘family’, OPr. caymis, Lith. kdimas ‘Dorf’, kiémas, Latv. ciems ‘Dorf, Versammlungshaus’, with uo-suffix: OlInd. Sevdh ‘traut, freundlich, lieb, wert’, Lat. civis ‘Biirger’, Goth. heiwa-frauja ‘Hausherr’, OHG. hiwa ‘Gattin’, Latv. siéva “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. šiėnas, OChSI. séno) is given in Mažiulis (1993 s. v. caymis; 1993s. v. 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. Siekstas, Sieksta ‘tree or bush lying in the water’ (LEZ, 735-737), Latv. sieksts, siéksta (<*Sei-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. Heu, Engl. hay, Swed. ho ‘hay’ and Germ. heuen, Engl. hew, 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 e.a. 2001 s. v.). 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-no- from the IE root *kei- reflected in i The use of different verbs for ‘cutting the hay’ and ‘cutting the rye’ was pointed out to me by Prof. Vytau- tas Maziulis (p.c.). LITH. šiėnas, OCHSL. sėno ‘HAY’ AND IE *kei- “TO LIE' | 3 Gr. zeit), 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 Primdarstammbildungen. Unter Leitung von H. Rix, unter der Mitarbeit vieler anderer bearbeitet von M. Kiimmel, T. Zehnder, R. Lipp, B. Schirmer. Zweite, erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage bearbeitet von M. Kimmel und H. Rix, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2001. LKZ - Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 1-XX, Vilnius, 1941-2002. ME - Karla Miilenbacha latviešu valodas vardnica 1-1V. Redigéjis, papildinajis, turpinajis J. 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