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A neglected Common Slavic word family for ‘Nymphaeaceae’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2018

Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld
Affiliation:
Jagiellonian University, Krakow
Barbara Podolak
Affiliation:
Jagiellonian University, Krakow
Zbigniew Babik
Affiliation:
(Kraków)
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Summary

According to the The dictionary of Russian dialects in the area of Ryazan occur a number of phytonyms containing the morpheme mamol- and exhibiting the botanical meaning ‘Nuphar lutea L.’ or rather ‘Nymphaea alba S. S.’. These forms are mamolka -i (SRNG XVII 351 s.v.: Est’ mamolki, u nich cvetki v sredkach želtye, a po krajam belye, kak machoriki”) and mamolnik -a (ib. s.v.: Celuju papušu vam nesla: i mamol'1ik, i semniki, i katki). All these forms are given with the date 1960–1963 and localization “Rjaz Rjaz”. Along with them, more numerous forms based on the morpheme mamon-are reported: mamonnik -a ‘list'1a i cvety želtoj kuvšinki’ (ibid.: 352, s.v.: “pojdem mamonnik rvat’ “), mamončik -a (ib. s.v.: “V ozerach mamončiki rastut želten'1ie, belenkie, list'1a širokie, kto mamončik nazovet, kto mamonka”). The term mamonki (sg. mamonka) is quoted there from two sources (ibid. sv.: “mamonki, brednem lavim, eto zamesto durmana”; after Grišina: “slovo očen’ redko upotrebljajetsja v ed. č”, from the area of Solotča near Ryazan). It should be noted that in the local dialects no distinction between the etymological vocalisms *a and *o in pretonic syllables has been kept, so that their a can represent *o as well.

The supposition that -n- is secondary with regard to -l- is supported by comparative lexical evidence from outside Russian. In Byelorussian Polesye, similar terms have been fixed in the same botanical meaning [Bejlina (1968: 426): momul ‘Nymphaea candida Presl.’, from the village of Lopatin on the Styr river; Špakoŭski (1977: 110): momil ‘bjaly harlačyk’, i.e. ‘Nymphaea alba’ from the southern part of the Pinsk area; Turaŭ (III 89): momel’ ~ momol m. ‘id.’, from the village of Rubel’, cf. ÈSBM (VII 66) s.v. *Momel’; Vjarènič (2009: 444): s.v. muł-2: mum’ił, momił, momuł and muł (m.) ‘vodnaja lilija, Nymphaca’ (sic! – Z.B.), from Polesye]. The latter are particularly appreciable, as they contain no further morphological extensions, thus allowing us to reconstruct the proto-form as *momol´ь or rather *momolъ m. (*-o-stem; the stress placement cannot be reliably reconstructed).

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Chapter
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Words and Dictionaries
A Festschrift for Professor Stanisław Stachowski on the Occasion of His 85th Birthday
, pp. 41 - 54
Publisher: Jagiellonian University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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