lemÌc. Lemizh grammar and dictionary

Lemizh / English dictionary


782 lemmata in dictionary – view complete dictionary on one page (slow!)multilingual dictionary

vnà.

to burn (of fire);
agentive caus: to set fire to something-dat, to burn something-dat to something-acc [e.g. ashes];
dat: to burn (of an object)

vnè. a/the fire
vnÌ. smoke and ashes
vnì. fuel
vnòr. fireplace, hearth

vnajnà. agentive caus: to burn down something-dat (as opposed to ‘set fire to’)

Usage notes

Fire is mythologically and poetically seen as female, which is the source of the ‘female’ (zero) poststem in Modern Lemizh. George Lakoff did not comment on this fact. (xÌf. ‘water’, by comparison, is male, as for some reason is sxnèz. ‘Sun’.)

Etymology

gender change of
NLem vengw‑a
LMLem, MLem vengw‑yr ‘fire’
OLem dhengw‑ ‘make fire’
PLem *dzengw‑ ‘burn’ [tr.], Narten present of
PIE *dʰegʷʰ‑

The Old Lemizh meaning ‘make fire’ gave rise to the inner accusative of MLem vengw‑yr ‘fire’. The modern plot, by contrast, views the fire-nom as burning an object-dat, in analogy to someone breaking a branch, the Sun melting snow, etc.

Cognates

Lat foveō ‘(keep) warm, foster’, Ved dáhati ‘burns’ [tr.]