акꙑ

Forms

акꙑ (aky)^[1] Variants: ѣкꙑ (Codex Zographensis), акъи (Codex Assemanianus) and окꙑ (Codex Suprasliensis).^[2][3]

Etymology

Sadnik and Aitzetmüller think it most likely that the word is ꙗкꙑ (“as”) with the loss of the initial j, following Vaillant; that word belongs to the relative pronoun stem of иже.^[4][5] Berneker instead derived it from the pronoun stem e/o, and Mladenov from the interrogative pronoun stem.^[4]

Derksen treats the parallel Proto-Slavic *ako (“as, if”), the source of OCS ꙗко beside rarer ако, of Czech jako, Slovak ako, Polish jako, Serbo-Croatian ako (“if”), Slovene àkọ and Bulgarian ако (ako, “if”), and takes its first element to be probably the conjunction *a.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Codex Zographensis, which also spells it ѣкꙑ, акꙑ renders Ancient Greek ὡς (hōs, “as, like”) in a few places where the other Gospel manuscripts have ѣко or ꙗко: акꙑ сѣть бо придетъ • на всѧ сѣдѧштѧѩ "for as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell" (L 21, 35), and вьзл҄юбиши подроуга своего ѣкꙑ самъ сѧ "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Mc 12, 31).^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Outside the Gospels the word is above all a word of the Codex Suprasliensis, where TOROT counts more than 140 instances.^[7][3] It renders ὡς most often, and also Ancient Greek ὥσπερ (hṓsper), Ancient Greek ὡσεί (hōseí), Ancient Greek καθάπερ (katháper) and Ancient Greek ἅτε (háte), introducing a comparison ("like, as if") or a predicative complement ("as, in the capacity of"), as in акꙑ чловѣкъ поплъзъ сꙙ паде "he slipped and fell as a man" (Supr 354, 24).^[3][2] Twice in the Suprasliensis it may mean "that".^[3] The correlative акꙑ … тако means "as … so".^[2] Later Church Slavonic kept акꙑ "as, as if, since" (Dyachenko), and SlaVaComp records акы in a 12th- to 13th-century East Slavic text.^[8][9]

Timeline

• End of the 9th to the 11th century – акꙑ renders ὡς and ὡσάν in a liturgical translation from Kliment's area of the First Bulgarian Empire.^[9]
• 12th–13th century – акы is used in an East Slavic translation from the south-western region.^[9]

Meanings

Conjunction

1. Like, as, as if, as though, introducing a comparison; for ὡς, ὥσπερ, ὡσεί, καθάπερ.^[3][2][1]
2. As, in the capacity of, introducing a predicative complement or a participle; for ὡς, ἅτε.^[3][2]
3. That, introducing what was said (twice in the Suprasliensis); for ὡς.^[3]

Related words

• ꙗкꙑ
• ꙗко
• окꙑ

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Slovník nejstarších staroslověnských památek (digital ed., Gorazd, Slovanský ústav AV ČR, gorazd.org); cf. Cejtlin, R. M.; Večerka, R.; Blagova, É. (eds.) (1994), Staroslavjanskij slovar' (po rukopisjam X–XI vekov), Moskva: Russkij jazyk
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
4. ^ a b Sadnik, Linda; Aitzetmüller, Rudolf (1955), Handwörterbuch zu den altkirchenslavischen Texten, Heidelberg: Winter / 's-Gravenhage: Mouton, p. 211
5. ^ Sadnik, Linda; Aitzetmüller, Rudolf (1955), Handwörterbuch zu den altkirchenslavischen Texten, Heidelberg: Winter / 's-Gravenhage: Mouton, p. 247
6. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 28
7. ^ Eckhoff, Hanne M.; Berdicevskis, Aleksandrs et al., TOROT: The Tromsø Old Russian and OCS Treebank, release 20200116, torottreebank.github.io
8. ^ D'jačenko, Grigorij (1899), Polnyj cerkovno-slavjanskij slovar', Moskva
9. ^ a b c SlaVaComp Metaglossar Griechisch–Kirchenslavisch, Universität Freiburg, slavistik-portal.de