contigo

Forms

contigo^[1] Old spellings are comtigo and cõtego in the 14th century, comtiguo and contygo in the 15th.^[2] Figueiredo (1899) still gives comtigo.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese com + tigo: the older pronoun already meant “with you”, and the preposition was added again in front of it.^[2][4][5][1] That pronoun continues Latin tēcum (“with you”), formed from tē (“you”) and cum (“with”), which Latin put after the pronoun.^[1][6][7] Vulgar Latin already had the form ticum.^[5] The vowel /i/ of the older pronoun, for Latin /e/, is due to the stressed pronoun ti; the form Old Galician-Portuguese contego with /e/ is still found in texts of the 14th and 15th centuries.^[2][8]

The same doubling made comigo and consigo.^[5][2] The same formation is Spanish contigo, while Old Spanish tigo and Old Spanish tego answer to the older Portuguese form.^[9][7] Wiktionary compares Italian teco.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tigo appears in a Latin charter of 910, propinquos tigo “relatives with you”.^[5] Contigo is first recorded in the 13th century, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: leva-me ja contigo “take me with you now”.^[2][10][5] The same songs still use the older tigo, which fell out of use in the 14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts use the word for company and for relation, as in the Crónica Troiana: porlo amor que ey contigo “for the love I have with you”.^[5] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders it by Latin tecum.^[11] Modern Portuguese has added senses such as “in your keeping”, “in your charge”, “concerning you” and “to your taste”.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 910 – a Latin charter has the Romance tigo.^[5]
• 13th century – contigo and tigo in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][5]
• 14th century – comtigo and cõtego, while tigo goes out of use.^[2][5]
• c. 1430 – contigo in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso lists Contigo = tecum.^[11]
• 1899 – Figueiredo treats contigo as the same as comtigo.^[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. With you (the person addressed as tu): Quero falar contigo.^[2][14]
2. In your possession (posse): As chaves ficaram contigo.^[2]
3. In your company: Ela vai contigo ao cinema.^[2][12]
4. In your charge, your responsibility.^[2]
5. Together with you, at the same time as you.^[2][15]
6. Concerning you: Isto não é contigo.^[2][15]
7. To yourself, inwardly.^[2][12]
8. To your liking, of your nature.^[2]
9. For your own benefit.^[2]

Related words

• comigo
• consigo
• tu
• Galician contigo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. contigo
3. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. contigo
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. contigo
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. contigo
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cum
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. contigo
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 133
9. ^ 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. contigo
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. contigo
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. contigo
12. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. contigo
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. contigo
14. ^ 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. contigo
15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2396