cá

Forms

cá (not comparable)^[1] Houaiss records ca in the 13th century, qua in the 14th and quaa in 1499.^[2] Cunha also records the 13th-century variant aca.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *eccum hāc (“here, this way”), from Latin eccum (“here he is”), used as an emphatic particle, and hāc (“this way”).^[2][3][1][4] Houaiss traces it through reconstructed intermediate forms to the old Old Galician-Portuguese acá, which then lost its first syllable.^[2] Wiktionary also takes it from this old form.^[1] Machado instead saw the old form as the preposition a followed by the adverb, which would put it outside this line of development.^[2] Cunha notes that in medieval Portuguese the variant with a- and aco, from *eccum hoc, competed with aqui and with the short form.^[3]

The same Latin phrase gave Spanish acá, and the same Latin particle is behind French çà and Italian qua.^[1][5] García de Diego lists the phrase beside *eccum hic, the source of aquí, and *eccum iste, the source of aqueste.^[6] The Latin particle is ecce (“look!”) with an old accusative pronoun.^[7][8]

Vieira rejected the derivation from the Latin adverb alone, given in Morais's dictionary, and one from Greek, and explained the loss of the first syllable by aphaeresis.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date cá to the 13th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for “here”: Nen que vos eu leixe... cá.^[10]

Semantic evolution

From the place where the speaker is, the word came to mean “to this place” with verbs of motion (vem cá), “among us, in this country”, and, by analogy, “at this point” of a text or a process.^[2][4] With first-person pronouns it is an expletive that stresses the speaker (eu cá não sei), a use Aulete already describes as familiar.^[2][11] The pair cá and lá contrasts the speaker's side with the other's, as in the proverb cá e lá más fadas há “there are bad fairies here and there”, that is, troubles are everywhere.^[11]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, spelt ca; the variant aca in the same century.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spelling qua.^[2]
• c. 1430 – cá in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[12]
• 1499 – the spelling quaa.^[2]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives the word from Latin eccu hac.^[9]

Meanings

Adverb

1. here, in the place where the speaker is: Cá em casa jantamos cedo.^[2][4][1]
2. hither, to the place where the speaker is: Anda cá!^[2][4][1]
3. Among us; in this house, town or country: Por cá está tudo bem.^[2][11]
4. At this point of a text or of a process; now: Cá chegados, paramos.^[2][1]
5. An expletive with first-person pronouns, stressing the speaker's view: Eu cá prefiro ficar.^[2][11]

Related words

• lá
• acolá
• ali
• Latin eccum
• Spanish acá

Usage notes

In Trás-os-Montes cá is also used for “no” and as an interjection of disbelief.^[13]

The name of the letter k is cá, from the letter's Latin name kā.^[4][1] Houaiss also has a masculine cá, a drum of the Bororo people, of indigenous origin.^[2] Morais records an archaic conjunction cá “because”.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cá
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cá
4. ^ a b c d e Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. cá
5. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. acá
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. eccum
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. eccum
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. ecce
9. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, s.v. cá
10. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. cá
11. ^ a b c d Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. cá
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cá
13. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. cá
14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 309