Names of mental operations in Polish against the Slavic background
Names of mental operations in Polish against the Slavic background

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the semantics of the all-Slavic THOUGHT/THINK. Due to their specific and indeed unique properties, which are attested by its frequent occurrence, its extraordinary ability to form words and collocations as well as its notable presence in appellative and onomastic material, this pair of lexical units should be classed as a kind of “semantic operators”. The evidence, which takes into account a broad semantic background and real semantic value, is unequivocal: to acquire real semantic value these core words have to form collocations or to appear in specific contexts. This fact justifies my proposal that the generally accepted etymology of myśl/myśleć (a consensus repeated in various etymological dictionaries which align this form with the Lithuanian maũsti/maudžiù/maudžiaũ (‘to ache slightly but persistently, to feel a dull pain / a prolonged distressing ache / a mild joint pain; to long, desire, want; to bother, pester, bore’) be replaced by an affiliation with the word family rooted in the IE *men-, which is present in the all-Slavic *pamętь ‘memory’. Its irregular phonetic development may have been caused, in accordance with Mańczak’s Law, by the abundance of its compound formations.

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