Publication details
The Indo-European Terms For Physical Phenomena In Slavic Names For Emotions
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2026 |
| Type | Peer-reviewed scientific article |
| Magazine / Source | Progress. Journal of Young Researchers |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | Slavic languages; Proto-Slavic; Proto-Indo-European; emotions; physical phenomena |
| Description | Modern Slavic languages have inherited a substantial layer of concrete vocabulary from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of today’s Indo-European languages. Some of the inherited terms also form the basis of the abstract Slavic lexicon related to human emotions. This paper demonstrates that many such words are derived from PIE terms originally denoting concrete physical phenomena of the material world. These include temperature, movement, visual appearance and object qualities, natural phenomena (such as blowing, shining), and human actions (such as placing, scratching, or fire-making activities). In some cases, semantic motivation is difficult to trace. Several illustrative examples could be the following: PIE root *kes- meaning ‘to touch’ is found in words for love; PIE root *(s)ter-, meaning ‘to be stiff, rigid, hard,’ is reflected in Common Slavic and Proto-Slavic *strax? (‘fear’); PIE *dheH1-, meaning ‘to put down,’ appears in Proto-Slavic *nadedja (‘hope’); PIE *steud-/stoud-, meaning ‘to get cool,’ is found in Slavic terms for the emotion of shame. The rest of terms and their semantic development are discussed throughout the paper. |
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