pe

Forms

pre, the older form: „Fericit omul carele … pre scaunul ucigașilor n-au șezut” “Blessed is the man who … has not sat in the seat of the murderers” (Bible of 1688, Psalm 1:1).^[2] Other variants are popular pă, Moldavian pi and old pri.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin per (“through”),^[4][5][1] through the older form pre.^[1][6] MDA2, the DLR and DEX give Latin super (“over, above”) as well as ⟨per⟩,^[3][7][8] and Ciorănescu notes that the Romanian word has the senses of both; in some senses it seems to copy Modern Greek κατά (katá).^[4] Wiktionary takes the meaning as influenced by ⟨super⟩.^[1]

Latin ⟨per⟩ became ⟨pre⟩ by metathesis.^[1] Candrea and Densusianu explain ⟨pe⟩ by dissimilation of the second /r/ in phrases such as ⟨pre râpă⟩ and ⟨pre rând⟩, from which ⟨pe⟩ spread to every position;^[6] Wiktionary sees the loss of /r/ in rapid speech.^[1]

The cognates are Aromanian pri, Megleno-Romanian pri and Istro-Romanian pre,^[4][9][10] and the Romance cognates include Italian per, French par, Spanish por and Portuguese por.^[4]

Ciorănescu compares the use of ⟨pe⟩ to mark a personal direct object with Spanish a, which goes back to the sense of Latin ad; he finds Nandriș's derivation from Old Church Slavonic на (na) unconvincing.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1514, in the Slavo-Romanian charters.^[2] MDA2's first record is the Hurmuzaki Psalter of the early 16th century,^[3] where the form is mostly pre.^[11] The first sense is place, “on”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From contact with a surface the preposition took the senses “along, over”, then time (pe toamnă), manner and means (pe pipăite), purpose, distribution (zece galbeni pe lună) and opposition.^[4] Its best-known use is as the marker of a direct object that is a person or a pronoun: aștept pe soră-mea.^[4][8] It is not used with an articled noun without an attribute: one says cunosc omul or cunosc pe om, never cunosc pe omul.^[4]

Before adverbs it is expletive: pe aici, pe la noi.^[4]

Timeline

• 1514 – first recorded in a Slavo-Romanian charter.^[2]
• early 16th century – pe and pre in the Hurmuzaki Psalter.^[11][3]
• 1617 – pre “against” in a Moldavian charter.^[4]
• 1688 – pre still the usual form in the Bucharest Bible.^[2]

Meanings

Preposition

1. Marks a direct object that is a person, a proper name or a pronoun: O caut pe Maria. Pe cine aștepți?^[8][1]
2. About, concerning: pe seama cuiva.^[8]
3. Against: E supărat pe fratele lui.^[8][4]
4. In exchange for, for: A dat zece lei pe carte.^[8]
5. on, upon (a surface): Cartea e pe masă. Also through, along: pe drum.^[8][1]
6. (with other prepositions and adverbs) About, approximately: pe la prânz.^[8][1]
7. (time) On, towards, during: pe seară, pe mâine.^[8][1]
8. (manner and means) pe furiș “stealthily”;^[8][4] (measure) by: zece pe cincisprezece metri;^[8][4] (distribution) per: de două ori pe zi.^[8][4]
9. Over, because of: S-au certat pe o moștenire.^[8]
10. (in oaths) On, by: pe cinstea mea.^[8]

Related words

• peste
• pentru
• pre-
• Aromanian pri
• Latin per

Usage notes

In the accusative of persons pe is usually doubled by a clitic pronoun: o chem pe Ana.^[8] Compounds formed with it include presus, prejos and precum.^[4]

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 Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pe
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 328
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. pe
5. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 113
6. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 223
7. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pe
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 794
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 231
10. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 317
11. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 9:3