ir

Forms

ir (first-person singular present vou, first-person singular preterite fui, past participle ido)^[1] Bluteau (1712–1728) and Feijó (1734) head the word hir and refer ir to it.^[2][3] Wiktionary lists hir and yr as old spellings.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin eō (“to go”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ir in the oldest texts.^[4][5][1] Houaiss stresses that the Portuguese verb is more complex than this: it joins three stems that were entirely separate verbs in Latin.^[4]

The present indicative (all but ides), the present subjunctive and most of the imperative come from vādō (“to advance, go”): vou, vai, vá.^[4] The second person plural of the present, the imperfect, the future, the conditional, the infinitive, the gerund and the participle come from the same verb as the infinitive: ia, irei, indo, ido.^[4] The preterite, the pluperfect and the imperfect and future subjunctive take the stem ⟨fu-⟩ of fuī, the perfect of sum (“to be”): fui, fora, fosse, for.^[4] Wiktionary likewise derives the forms in /v/ from the Latin verb “to advance” and those in /f/ from the verb “to be”, a suppletion that ir shares with ser.^[1] In the cantigas the present runs Old Galician-Portuguese vou, Old Galician-Portuguese vas, Old Galician-Portuguese vai, Old Galician-Portuguese imos, Old Galician-Portuguese ides, Old Galician-Portuguese van.^[6]

The Latin verb of the infinitive also gave Galician ir, Spanish ir, Old Occitan ir and Italian ire, and the French future irai; the REW notes that it is defective everywhere.^[7] The verb for “to advance” supplies present forms in the other languages too, such as Italian vado and French vais.^[8] The verb French aller likewise amalgamates three Latin verbs.^[9] In Spanish, Corominas notes, the preterite taken from the verb “to be” is general from the oldest texts.^[10]

De Vaan traces the verb of the infinitive to Proto-Italic *ei- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁ei- (“to go”), and the verb for “to advance” to *ueh₂dʰ- (“to advance”), whose Germanic relatives are Old High German watan and Old Norse vaða (“to wade”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date is a Latin charter of 944 with the Romance form uai “goes”, which he takes from Machado.^[4] The first records in Galician-Portuguese are Galician charters: in 1257 unde uos digo que uaades a esa Maor Rodriguiz “so I tell you to go to that Maior Rodriguiz”, and in 1258–1261 ende como uay endereyto ao Ryo do Heume “thence as it goes straight to the river Heume”, of a boundary.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The cantigas already use the verb for going from one place to another, for the night drawing on, for dying, for how one's life is going, and in the pronominal ir-se “to go away”.^[6] The periphrases with an infinitive and with a gerund, the bases of the modern future vou fazer and of the progressive vai fazendo, are also found in them.^[6]

The Latin–Portuguese dictionaries gloss the verb with Latin eo, pergo, vado and venio.^[13][14][15] Figueiredo (1899) lists more than a dozen senses and remarks that many others can be known only from the construction.^[16] Modern dictionaries add the euphemism “to die” (foi-se) and senses such as “to suit, go with” and “to be getting on”.^[4][1] Brazilian colloquial speech uses ir de for going the way of someone, especially to death or extinction.^[1] In Rio Grande do Sul, expressions such as ir aos pés “to defecate” and ir ao pelego “to beat someone” are recorded.^[17]

Timeline

• 944 – a Latin charter has uai “goes”.^[4]
• 1257 – uaades “(that) you go” in a Galician charter.^[12]
• 13th century – the infinitive ir is recorded.^[4]
• c. 1510 – ir in the Vida de Santo Agostinho (witness 1480–1510).^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Ir with Latin eo and venio.^[13]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it with eo, pergo and vado.^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the verb hir.^[2]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes the spelling hir.^[3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo notes that the verb's many senses depend on the construction.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go, move from one place to another: Fomos a pé até à praia.^[4][19][1]
2. To go somewhere to do something or to stay there; to attend (an event): Não pude ir à reunião.^[4][1]
3. (also pronominal) To leave, depart: Ela foi-se embora cedo.^[4][1]
4. To be sent or conveyed: A encomenda vai pelo correio.^[4][20]
5. To lead or extend to a place; to last until a time: A estrada vai até à fronteira.^[4][1]
6. (pronominal) To pass, vanish, be used up;^[4][1] (euphemistic) to die.^[4][1]
7. To fare, be getting on: Como vai o negócio?^[1][21]
8. To suit, go well with (with com).^[1][19]
9. (auxiliary, with an infinitive) To be going to; forms the future: Vou sair amanhã.^[1][22]
10. (auxiliary, with a gerund) To go on doing, to be gradually doing something.^[1]

Word family

• ida

Related words

• ser
• Latin eō
• Galician ir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ir
3. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ir
4. ^ 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. ir
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ir
6. ^ a b c Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. ir
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4545
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9117
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. aller
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 467
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b 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. ir
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ir
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ir
15. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ir
16. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. ir
17. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. ir
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ir
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ir
20. ^ 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. ir
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5401
22. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. ir