construi

Forms

construi (present construiesc, third-person singular construiește, past participle construit), fourth conjugation^[1][2] Older texts conjugate it construesc, as Negulici, Damé and CADE do: „Casele se construesc cu lemne, cu pietre, cu cărămizi” “houses are built of wood, stone and brick”.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French construire, according to DELR, Tiktin, DA and Wiktionary.^[6][7][3][1] DEX 2009, MDA2 and MDN name the Latin verb as a second source.^[2][8][9] The French verb was borrowed in the 13th century from Latin cōnstruō (“to pile up in ordered layers; to build”), formed con- and struō (“to arrange, build”).^[10][6] Graur groups it with structură, distruge, instrui and instrument, all neologisms from the same Latin verb.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is Săulescu's Romanian grammar of 1833, and Tiktin has the same year.^[6][7] In 1848 Negulici explains it with zidi, clădi and edifica.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is to build a house or other structure, and by extension a machine or a ship.^[3][12] The figurative senses (to build up a system or a theory), the geometrical sense (to draw a figure) and the grammatical sense (to arrange words by the rules of the language) are all in Șăineanu's dictionary and in CADE.^[12][13] CADE also has the reflexive of a word that requires a certain construction: a preposition “is construed” with a case.^[13]

The family came in mostly from French and Latin: construcție is recorded from 1783, earlier than the verb, constructor from 1847, constructiv from 1871, and deconstrui, first “to take apart”, from 1862.^[6]

Timeline

• 1783 – construcție.^[6]
• 1833 – construi in Săulescu's grammar.^[6][7]
• 1847 – constructor.^[6]
• 1848 – Negulici: “to build, erect”.^[4]
• 1862 – deconstrui “to take apart”.^[6]
• 1871 – construct and constructiv in Laurian and Massim's dictionary.^[6]
• 1949 – construibil “on which one may build”.^[6]
• 1972 – deconstrucție.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To build, construct: to make a building, a machine or a complex technical system from a plan, by working and assembling its parts: Au construit un pod nou peste râu.^[2][14][8]
2. (figurative) To put together, organise (a theory, a system, a life).^[9][15]
3. (geometry) To draw a figure.^[2]
4. (linguistics) To arrange words in a sentence by the rules of grammar or for a stylistic effect, and in the reflexive, of a part of speech, to take a given construction: Prepoziția se construiește cu acuzativul.^[2]

Word family

• construct
• constructiv
• constructivism
• constructor
• construcție
• construibil
• reconstructiv
• reconstrucție
• reconstrui

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 225
3. ^ a b c Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. construi
4. ^ a b c Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. construi
5. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. construi
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. construi
7. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. construi
8. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 492
9. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. construi
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
12. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 162
13. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. construi
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 216
15. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. construi