sine

Forms

sine: the stressed accusative of the reflexive pronoun se, for all genders and numbers, often strengthened as sine însuși.^[2][1] Old texts join it to a clitic possessive or to the particle -și: sineși, sine-mi, sine-ți.^[3][4] A 17th-century text has „gândind întru sineș de puterea celui ce s-au răstignit într-însa” “thinking within himself of the power of him who was crucified on it (the cross)”.^[5] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written си́нє.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sē (“himself, herself, themselves”), remodelled on mine and tine so that the stressed form would not be a monosyllable.^[3][2][1] Ciorănescu compares Latin sēsē and Spanish consigo (“with oneself”).^[3] Scriban derives it from an older ⟨sene⟩, made on ⟨se⟩ as ⟨mine⟩ was on ⟨me⟩.^[6] The Latin pronoun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *se (“oneself”).^[7]

The REW lists it beside the unstressed se, with Italian sé, French soi and Spanish se; in Romanian, Dalmatian and some Italian and southern French dialects the pronoun also serves for the first and second persons.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The pronoun is in the 16th-century psalters: Coresi's Psalter of 1570 has it at Psalm 35:1, and the Psaltirea Scheiană in the following years.^[9][10][5] Its sense there is the reflexive “himself, themselves” after a preposition.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In the old language sine could stand as a direct object without a preposition, and it also served the first and second persons.^[3][4] Today it follows pe as the object of a reflexive verb, or other prepositions: de la sine “by itself, unaided”, în sine “in itself”, de sine stătător “independent”.^[2][6] Used as a noun it came to mean “one's inner self”: în sinea lui “in his own mind”, from în sine “inside himself”.^[3][2] Scriban called în sinea lui and în sinele lui phrases “in bad taste”.^[6]

In the 19th century sine was used to render the prefix auto-: sineiubire “self-love, egoism”, sinestătător “autonomous”.^[3] Of these coinages only sinucidere “suicide” and sinucigaș “a suicide” stayed in the language.^[3]

Timeline

• 1570 – sine in Coresi's Psalter (Psalm 35:1), the first record in the psalters.^[9]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[10][5]
• 1642 – însuși cu sine “in his own person” in the Evanghelie învățătoare.^[5]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon glosses Slavonic reflexive forms with it.^[11]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses it nearly two hundred times.^[12]
• 19th century – coinages rendering auto-, of which sinucidere and sinucigaș survive.^[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (after pe, in the old language pre) oneself: himself, herself, itself, themselves, as the direct object of a reflexive verb: Se laudă numai pe sine. “He praises only himself.”^[2][1]
2. (after other prepositions) himself, herself, themselves, as an attribute or an indirect or adverbial complement: Și-a păstrat banii pentru sine. “She kept the money for herself.” De la sine means “by itself, unaided, of one's own accord”.^[2][13]
3. (as a noun, sinea) One's inner self, one's conscience: în sinea mea “in my own mind, to myself”.^[2][3]

Word family

• sinucidere
• sinucigaș

Related words

• se
• mine
• tine
• însuși
• Latin sē

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1021
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. sine
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 836
5. ^ 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. sine
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1204
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7761
9. ^ 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 35:1
10. ^ 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 53:3
11. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. sine
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 1:30
13. ^ Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 554