VERBAL ROOT *ΜΑΝ- IN ANCIENT GREEK: ETYMOLOGY AND DERIVATIONAL FIELD

Abstract

The current paper has sought to look at the etymology and derivational capacity of the sub-concept ΜΑΝΙΑ, which belongs to the group of sub-concepts ΝΟΣΟΣ, ΑΣΘΕΝΕΙΑ and ΑΡΡΩΣΤΙΑ that make up the core of the macro-concept DISEASE in the ancient Greek language. The result displays that the root μαν- in ancient Greek can be traced back to the Indo-European root *men-/man and refers to the mental sphere. This conclusion is supported by the analysis of derivatives existing in some Indo-European languages. Following the line of thought that studying the derivational capacity is of crucial importance for the analysis of the chosen sub-concept, the paper singles out 28 derivatives formed from the verbal root μαν- with the meaning of mental disorder. The head of all derivatives that evolved from the mentioned root is the noun ἡ μανία and the verb μαίνομαι which belong to the archaic layer of the Greek lexicon. The majority of derived lexemes are represented by adjectives (14 units) and verbs (12 units). A lot of compound adjectives contain –μανης as the second component and the number of such compounds increased from the Hellenistic era onwards. The paper substantiates that when these adjectives realize the nuclear seme “excessive addiction” it combines with the semes of the first component that commonly serve to express the cause of state. Suffixation and stem compounding that are generally typical for nominal parts of speech (nouns, adjectives) were discovered to be the principal types of word formation. Prefixation was less common and was characteristic of verbs. The research findings illustrate how prefixes partially modify the meaning of primary stems and provide new coinages with additional shades of intensity, relationality, directiveness, sociativity. The semantics of derivatives is motivated by the meaning of the initial stem – “presence of mental deviations”, which later developed into the seme of “inadequacy of behavior”, “exaltation” and “inspiration”. All derivatives maintain close semantic ties with the initial stem.