perguntar

Forms

perguntar (first-person singular present pergunto, first-person singular preterite perguntei, past participle perguntado)^[1] The old form preguntar is recorded from the 13th century, and still lives in popular speech in Portugal, the Azores and Brazil.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *praecūnctō, written Old Galician-Portuguese preguntar in the oldest texts.^[5][2][6][1] The Vulgar Latin verb is an alteration of Latin percontor (“to inquire, question”), with the prefix prae- in place of per- and the influence of cūnctor (“to delay, hesitate”).^[3][4][1] Corominas points out that the /ɡ/ shows that every Ibero-Romance form started from a variant with /k/ between vowels, so the agreement of modern ⟨perguntar⟩ with the Latin prefix ⟨per-⟩ is chance.^[4]

Wiktionary explains ⟨perguntar⟩ as a metathesis of ⟨preguntar⟩.^[1] Nascentes, in his short dictionary, describes it as a change of prefix: ⟨perguntar⟩ stood beside ⟨preguntar⟩ in the old language and became the educated form.^[3] In his fuller dictionary he cites Gonçalves Viana, who held that ⟨perguntar⟩ came later and attributed it to the 16th-century grammarian Duarte Nunes de Leão.^[7]

The same Vulgar Latin verb is Galician preguntar and Spanish preguntar.^[1][4] Sardinian keeps forms closer to the classical Latin verb.^[4] The Catalan verb preguntar is a borrowing from Spanish, not found in the Middle Ages.^[4] The Latin verb is formed from contus (“pole”), as if “to sound the depth with a pole”, though Wiktionary also lists other proposals.^[8][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunha dates the word to the 13th century, and Houaiss dates the spelling ⟨perguntar⟩ to the 14th.^[2][5] Corominas cites ⟨preguntar⟩ from the Cancioneiro da Vaticana.^[4] The first sense is “to question, inquire”, which Houaiss also gives with a person as direct object, now archaic: perguntar alguém.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The noun pergunta “question” is recorded in 1365.^[10] Barbosa in 1611 renders the verb with Latin interrogo, quaero and percontor.^[11] Morais in 1789 defines it as asking for information about something and putting a question that asks for a solution.^[12] Caldas Aulete's old dictionary still illustrates the construction with a person as object by the questioning of a witness.^[13] The reflexive perguntar-se “to wonder” is common today.^[5][1] Dialect surveys in Portugal record the senses “to look for” and “to ask a girl to go out with one”.^[14]

Timeline

• 1200s – first record, as Cunha dates it, with the form preguntar.^[2]
• 1300s – Houaiss's date for the spelling perguntar.^[5]
• 1365 – first record of the noun pergunta.^[10]
• 1438 – the Vida de Santa Eufrosina has the verb.^[15]
• 1500 – perguntei in a private letter.^[16]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it with Latin interrogo and percontor.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as asking for information.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To ask (a question, information): Perguntei-lhe a que horas abria a loja.^[5][6][1]
2. (with por) To ask after, ask about: A vizinha perguntou pela tua saúde.^[5][6]
3. To ask questions, inquire: Quem não sabe deve perguntar.^[5][17]
4. (archaic) To question (a person): perguntar os acusados.^[5][13]
5. (reflexive) To wonder, ask oneself: Às vezes pergunto-me se valeu a pena.^[5][6][1]

Word family

• pergunta
• perguntador
• perguntão

Related words

• perguntante
• Latin percontor
• Spanish preguntar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. perguntar
3. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. perguntar
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 635
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. perguntar
6. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. perguntar
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 391
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. preguntar
10. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pergunta
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. perguntar
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 188
13. ^ a b 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. perguntar
14. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. perguntar
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. perguntar
16. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. perguntar
17. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. perguntar