Iterative or stative? New morphosemantic analyses of Latinlūgeō‘mourn’ anddoleō‘feel pain’

Abstract

AbstractThis paper will start by focusing on the morphosemantics of a Latin verblūgeō‘mourn’, which represents an emotion felt by people mentally excruciated by their loved one’s death. Traditionally, it has been believed that the Proto-Indo-European verbal root *leu̯g- ‘break’ underlieslūgeō, but recently this etymology has been challenged. However, I will support the traditional ‘break’ hypothesis through a novel semantic comparison todoleō‘feel pain’, a verb also expressing a type of sensation humans often experience. Since its underlying root *delh1- means ‘hew, split’, similar to ‘break’, the semantic development ofdoleōwould provide a neat parallel forlūgeō. Having salvaged the connection with *leu̯g-, I will advocate a stative formation (with *-eh1-i̯é-) forlūgeōinstead of the more commonly presumed iterative reconstruction (with *-éi̯e-). The analysis conducted forlūgeōturns out to be useful fordoleō, too; I will propose that the latter verb’s wider semantic range is best explained as the result of the convergence of two formations, a stative form meaning ‘feel pain’ (with *-eh1-i̯é-) and an iterative form meaning ‘habitually give pain to’ (with *-éi̯e-, as previously assumed for this verb).