On the History of Concepts: A Linguistic Perspective. The Verb ‘to hide’ in Shughni

Abstract

In this paper, we undertake a study of the lexical semantics of verbs with the meaning ‘hideʼ in one of the small Eastern Iranian languages of the Pamirs – Shughni, spoken in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of Tajikistan. Data for the paper were extracted from the published dictionary of the Shughni language (Karamshoev 1988–1999), as well as field materials from 2021 (Khorugh) collected by the authors on the basis of a typological questionnaire, created by the Moscow Lexico-typological group as part of the work on the project “The problem of semantic continuity in the lexico-typological aspect”. The paper consistently examines all Shughni lexemes with the meaning ʽhideʼ and analyzes examples of their use. The analyzed material shows that the original lexical system of the Shughni language was practically devoid of the semantic field ‘hide’. The formation of this field took place gradually by borrowing the corresponding lexemes from the dominant language for this region (Tajik). Paradoxically, the Shughni system did not, as a result, become identical to Tajik in this lexical area. In reality, the Shughni language chose the Tajik verb with the meaning ʽto put, to placeʼ as the main verb to designate a variety of situations of hiding, and over time developed for it the general meaning of ʽhideʼ. At the same time, the principal Tajik verbs for the the meaning ʽto hideʼ – formed on the basis of the semantic aspects ʽhidden, secretʼ – in the Shughni system turned out to be on the periphery. Our work traces semantic shifts – both those typical of verbs with the meaning ‘hide’ and those that lead to the formation of predicates with such a meaning.