Esbozos de dos estudios de lexicología diacrónica

Abstract

This essay consists of two different studies. First, it resumes the discussion about matar and its derivatives that has lasted for centuries. Rematar y arrematar are different verbs, but its usage is almost the same. It is suspected that there was a secondary association between (a)rrematar and two other verbs in Medieval Spanish: (a)rremeter and (a)rrebatar. (A)rrematar has lexical developments in Jewish-Spanish, Old Spanish and Modern Spanish in dialectal areas. Secondly, this essay deals with the problem posed by menudencia in Spanish and miudeza in Portuguese. In spite of the fact that menudencia does not pose etymological problems, the origin of the Portuguese term miudu (related to miudeza) is surprising. It is also exceptional that the suffix -eza, typical of the Western parts of the Peninsula, should correspond to -encia in the Central region. Around 1400 both the norm of compatibility and the coincidence of d and z were altered (as in menud- and menuz-) and this circumstance led the speaker to coin a new abstract term in order to match menud-o in Spanish (and meúdo, miúdo in Portughese). Since -encia in Spanish and -eza in Portuguese were in vogue at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the speakers constructed menudencia and miud-eza, though there remained traces of this dual operation of composition.