son

son¹ his, her, its

Etymology tree of son¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin sum

Aromanian hiu

Catalan son

French soit

Italian essere

Romanian fi

Spanish ser

From the same root · son¹

Latin absum ← sum

Latin adsum ← sum

Latin dēsum ← sum

Latin ēns ← sum

Latin forsit ← sum

Latin forsitan ← sum

Latin futūrus ← sum

Latin īnsum ← sum

Latin intersum ← sum

Latin obsum ← sum

Latin possum ← sum

Latin praesum ← sum

Latin prōsum ← sum

Latin subsum ← sum

Latin supersum ← sum

Spanish interés ← sum

Romanian ființă ← fi

Romanian fire ← fi

Pronunciation

• Balearic, Central: /sun/^[1]
• Valencia: /son/^[1]

Forms

son m (feminine sa, masculine plural sos, feminine plural ses)^[1]

Etymology

The possessive is inherited from Old Catalan son, which is inherited from Vulgar Latin sum, the reduced form of Latin suus (“his, her, its own”) in its accusative ⟨suum⟩.^[1][2][3] Before a noun Vulgar Latin ⟨suum⟩ and ⟨sua⟩ were monosyllabic and became ⟨son⟩ and ⟨sa⟩.^[1][3] Stressed, they gave seu.^[1][3] Bruguera lists ⟨son⟩ and ⟨sa⟩ under ⟨seu⟩.^[4]

The same unstressed form is Occitan son and French son.^[1][5]

Latin ⟨suus⟩ is from Proto-Italic *sowos and Proto-Indo-European *sewos, from *swé (“self”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The weak forms appear from the beginnings of the written language: the Homilies d'Organyà speak of a man who tanca sa casa o son castel “locks his house or his castle”.^[3] The GDLC also dates the word to the 12th century, with the Homilies.^[2] CICA dates the Homilies between 1175 and 1224.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Medieval prose uses son, sa, sos, ses freely before nouns, as Eiximenis does: ço del seu a son prohisme “of what is his to his neighbour”.^[7] Jaume I's chronicle and other archaic texts also use them for a plural possessor, “their”, where the medieval norm was llur.^[3]

The weak forms later receded everywhere, and in the modern spoken language they survive mainly with kinship terms (son pare, sa mare).^[3] Verdaguer still preferred them in verse.^[3] Coromines heard the fixed phrase ha costat sos duros “it cost a fair sum” from old people in Barcelona around 1914; a romance collected at Girona has the analogical feminine suna for sa.^[3]

Timeline

• 1175–1224 – son castel in the Homilies d'Organyà.^[3][6]
• 1244–1274 – Jaume I's chronicle uses son and ses also for “their”.^[3]
• 1381 – Eiximenis: a son prohisme.^[7]
• c. 1914 – Coromines hears ha costat sos duros in Barcelona.^[3]

Meanings

Determiner

1. his, her, its; the unstressed possessive, used before the noun, today mostly with kinship terms: son germà, sa cosina.^[2][1][3]
2. (archaic) their.^[1][3]
3. your, referring to the person addressed as vostè.^[1]

son² sleep

Etymology tree of son²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin somnus

Catalan son

French somme

Italian sonno

Romanian somn

Spanish sueño

From the same root · son²

Latin īnsomnis ← somnus

Latin īnsomnium ← somnus

Latin sēmisomnus ← somnus

Latin somniculus ← somnus

Pronunciation

• Northern: [ˈso̞n]^[1]
• Balearic, Central, Northwestern, Valencia: [ˈsɔn]^[1]

Forms

son m (plural sons)^[1] The DCVB records the pronunciations [sɔ́n], [sɔ̞́n], [sɔ́] and [sɔ̞́].^[8] The word is masculine in the sense “sleep” and feminine in the sense “sleepiness”.^[9][10]

Etymology

The word for sleep is inherited from Old Catalan son, which is inherited from Latin somnus (“sleep”).^{[11][8][12][2][1]}

The same Latin word is Spanish sueño, which in Spanish merged with the descendant of somnium (“dream”), and Occitan sòm.^[13][14]

The Latin noun is from Proto-Italic *swepnos and Proto-Indo-European *swépnos, and is cognate with Ancient Greek ὕπνος (húpnos) and Sanskrit स्वप्न (svapna).^[1][15]

Latin ⟨somnus⟩ was masculine, and the masculine suits a Catalan word ending in a consonant; but the feminine words close to it in sense, fam “hunger” and set “thirst”, made ⟨son⟩ feminine as well, above all in the sense “wish to sleep”.^[11][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines finds the word from the beginnings of the language; his first quotation is a document of 1250 from the Alt Cardener, vengren ... prim son passad “they came when the first sleep was over”.^[11] Bruguera and the GDLC date it to 1250.^[12][2] Jaume I's chronicle tells how the ship of Guillem de Montcada caught up with the king's prop del primer son, near the first part of the night.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the word means both the state of sleep and the act of sleeping at a given time, especially its first part, the prim son.^[11][7] At first the two genders alternate in every sense: a document of 1295 has el primer son and one of 1387 a hora de prima son.^[11] The feminine soon prevailed in the sense “desire to sleep”: Bernat Metge writes sobtat de molta son “overcome by great sleepiness”.^[11]

Labèrnia in 1839 already separates the feminine, the inclination to sleep, from the masculine, the act of sleeping.^[16] Fabra fixed the distinction in 1932, with phrases such as tenir el son lleuger “to be a light sleeper” and caure de son “to be dropping with sleep”.^[10] The compound entreson is a light, interrupted sleep.^[12]

Timeline

• 1250 – prim son in a document from the Alt Cardener.^[11][12]
• 1272 – Llull's Blanquerna: prim son.^[7]
• 1295 – el primer son, masculine, in a document of Camarasa.^[11]
• 1387 – a hora de prima son, feminine.^[11]
• 1396 – havien dormit ja un son in a criminal trial.^[7]
• 1839 – Labèrnia separates the feminine “sleepiness” from the masculine “sleep”.^[16]
• 1932 – Fabra heads the word as masculine and feminine.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (masculine) sleep, the state of rest in which consciousness is suspended: Té el son molt lleuger.^[9][2][1]
2. (masculine) A spell of sleep, as in fer un son “to have a nap”.^[9][7]
3. (masculine) el primer son, el prim son: the first hours of the night's sleep.^[7][10]
4. (feminine) sleepiness, the wish to sleep: tenir son, caure de son.^{[2][8][10][1]}

Word family

• entreson