*Rěč', *slovo, *besěda: Etymology and semantic prehistory

Abstract

Common Slavic words *rěč', *slovo and *besěda all came to express, in different Slavic languages, the linguistic notion of 'word, speech', but each of those apparent synonyms has a (pre)history of its own. That of *rěč' is the least complicated: as a verbal noun from *rekti 'to say', it stands in the closest relationship to its object, which may explain the semantic development to 'thing'. *Slovo goes back to PIE *kléuos 'fame', which is also the prevalent meaning of its cognates in IE languages. As an exception Avestan sravah- does not mean 'word', as it had been taken for granted for a long time, but rather 'eulogy, hymn'. Not unlike it -and Homeric Pl. kléa andrôn- Pre-Christian *slovo seems to have been a solemn, especially commemorative speech, a funeral lamentation, an epic poem. In translating the Holy Scripture into Slavonic it apparently met Greek logos in the rhetorical part of its semantic field, and only secondarily expanded onto the lexical one. As for *besěda, its proper sense is 'a speech in public', which developed from 'a meeting(-place) in the open'; it is convincingly analyzable as *bez-sěda, 'sitting outside', a compound etymologically matched, in Old Indian, by the adjective bahih-sad- meaning the same (used of a gambler).

Predmet rada su prasl. lekseme *rěč', *slovo i *besěda čiji refleksi u pojedinim slovenskim jezicima označavaju lingvistički pojam 'reč'. Njihov semantički razvoj išao je raznim putevima od različitih polazišta. Kao postverbal od *rekti 'reći', *rěč' stoji u najtešnjoj vezi sa svojim predmetom, što objašnjava semantički razvoj u 'stvar'. Za *slovo od praie. *kléuos 'slava' može se, kao i za prasrodno avest. sravah-, pretpostaviti izvorno značenje 'svečan govor, hvalospev', a za *besěda 'zbor, zborište' odatle 'javna reč', u skladu sa tumačenjem kao *bez-sěda 'sedenje napolju' koje se potkrepljuje etimološki podudarnim stind. pridevom bahih-sád- 'koji sedi napolju (o kockaru)'. .