tenir

Forms

tenir (first-person singular present tinc, first-person singular preterite tinguí, past participle tingut); root stress: (Northern) /e̞/, (Balearic, Central, Northwestern, Valencia) /e/^[1] The DIEC2 accepts the infinitive tindre beside tenir;^[2][1] Wiktionary also lists tendre.^[2][1] The DCVB records the infinitive pronounced [təˈni], [teˈni] and [teˈniɾ], and in the forms with the ending -re [ˈtindɾə], [ˈtindɾe], [ˈtinre] and [ˈtenrə].^[3] Many Roussillon texts of the 13th century write tener, as the Vides de sants rosselloneses sometimes do; in Roussillon too tenir became general from the middle of the 14th century.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin teneō (“to hold, keep”), which passed from the second conjugation to the verbs in ⟨-ir⟩.^{[4][3][5][6][1]} Wiktionary places the change in Early Medieval Latin.^[1]

Most Romance languages kept the verb in its old class, as Portuguese ter, Spanish tener and Italian tenere did; French tenir, Catalan, the Occitan of Provence and some dialects of northern Italy and the Alps moved it to the ⟨-ir⟩ verbs, while most of Occitan kept the type tener.^[4] The troubadours mostly wrote ⟨tener⟩, and Old Catalan tener is found in verse, where it may imitate Occitan, and in archaic prose, especially in Roussillon.^[4]

The Latin verb comes from *tenēō, a stative verb of Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch, draw”), the root also of Ancient Greek τείνω (teínō, “to stretch”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines gives as the first record a document of the Alt Cardener of the 12th century, which complains that someone seized a man with his goods and clothes and held them all for weeks (teng-o près tot senmanes).^[4] In the earliest records the verb means to hold or keep;^[4] tenir itself already appears in a truce of Urgell of 1244 and in a lawsuit of the Alt Cardener of 1250.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In classical Latin the verb meant above all to hold, support and keep; in the Vulgar Latin of the Iberian Peninsula it took on the sense of possession and pushed habeō back, largely to its use as an auxiliary.^[3] Coromines calls this the central fact in the word's history, an innovation of the three Romance languages of the Peninsula: its northern limit has always been the northern border of Catalan and Spanish, so that southern Languedoc and Gascony, even the Val d'Aran, use the verb from habere.^[4] Portuguese went furthest, using ter even as the auxiliary of the past.^[4]

The medieval texts show the older senses beside possession: to keep (a prisoner), to stop (Eiximenis has tenits un poch! “wait a moment!”), to hold out against an enemy, as in Desclot, Muntaner and the Tirant, and to observe a rule.^[7] Its compounds are old too: contenir and contingut appear in Llull, atenir-se in Eiximenis.^[5]

Timeline

• 12th century – first record, in a document of the Alt Cardener.^[4]
• 1200–1249 – tenir in the Usatges de Barcelona.^[8]
• 1244 – tenir in a truce of Urgell.^[4]
• 1283 – Desclot: a church that could not hold out long.^[7]
• 1284 and 1304 – tener in documents of Roussillon.^[4]
• 1381 – Eiximenis, tenits un poch!^[7]
• 1460 – the Tirant lo Blanc uses it for keeping a monastic rule.^[7]
• 1932 – Fabra's Diccionari general gives the possessive sense first.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To have, possess; to have as a part, quality or state: La meva germana té tres gats.^[2][6][1]
2. To hold: to keep from falling or giving way, especially with the hands: Tingues bé l'escala mentre pujo.^[2][6][1]
3. To consider (someone or something) as: Tothom el té per honrat.^[6]
4. (pronominal) To stand, to stay upright without falling.^[6][3]
5. To keep, observe (a promise, an agreement, a rule).^[3][7]
6. To contain; to measure (a length or a time).^[3]

Word family

• tenidor
• teniment
• tinent
• captenir-se

Related words

• contenir
• abstenir-se
• atenir-se
• Latin teneō
• Spanish tener
• French tenir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. tenir
3. ^ a b c d e f Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. tenir
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 415
5. ^ a b Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 890
6. ^ a b c d e Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. tenir
7. ^ a b c d e Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. tenir
8. ^ Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. tenir
9. ^ Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. tenir