Sp. olvidar
The very
common Spanish verb olvidar ‘to forget’ does not have an English
cognate, but it does have some English ‘relatives’ (related words), namely oblivion,
oblivious, and obliviousness. In this chapter we will take a look
at these related words, including a discussion about the several ways the verb olvidar
is used in Spanish. Then we will also take a look at two cognate words that are
not related to the words we have mentioned but which look like they might have
been since they have a formal and semantically similarity with them: Sp. obliterar
~ Eng. obliterate.
Figure 108: The Waters of Lethe by
Thomas Benjamin Kennington
The river Lethe, or the river of Unmindfulness, flowing through the cave of Hypnos (god of sleep),
personified as the goddess of forgetfulness in Greek mythology
[Ancient Greek λήθη (lethe) means ‘oblivion, forgetfulness, concealment’][i]
The river Lethe, or the river of Unmindfulness, flowing through the cave of Hypnos (god of sleep),
personified as the goddess of forgetfulness in Greek mythology
[Ancient Greek λήθη (lethe) means ‘oblivion, forgetfulness, concealment’][i]
Sp. olvidar
has been reconstructed as descending from Vulgar Latin *oblītāre, the
descendant of a putative frequentative
Latin verb derived from the stem oblīt‑ of the passive participle oblītus
of the third conjugation, inchoative deponent Latin verb oblīvīscī (cf.
Part I, Chapter 8, §8.4.3). This verb’s principal parts were
present tense oblīvīscor ‘I forget’, present infinitive oblīvīscī ‘to
forget’, and perfect active oblītus sum ‘I forgot’. This verb meant
primarily ‘to forget’, but also ‘disregard, omit, neglect, be indifferent to, etc.’
(CTL).[1]
Sp. olvidar is a patrimonial word that is
attested in the earliest Spanish writings, such as the Cid (c. 1200). In
Berceo’s 13th century writings we also find a variant of olvidar which
is closer to the original Latin word, namely oblidar (DCEH). Early on,
this verb was typically written with b, as in Latin, but by the 15th
century the word came to be written mainly with a v, which has the same
exact pronunciation in Spanish (cf. Part I, Chapter 7,
§7.12).
This kind spelling change in a patrimonial Spanish word involving the letters 〈b〉 and 〈v〉 is not unique. The spelling
change in this particular word is shared with the Portuguese cognate of this word,
also olvidar, but in this language the spelling change actually reflects
a sound change that took place in this language in certain phonetic contexts,
namely Lat. b [b] often became Port. v, pronounced [v] in Portuguese,
a change that did not take place in Spanish, as the following examples show: Port.
alva vs. Sp. alba, from Lat. alba, and Port. árvol
vs. Sp. árbol ‘tree’ (from Lat. arbor), Port. fava vs. Sp.
haba, from Lat. fabam, Port. livro vs. Sp. libro,
from Lat. lībrum; and Port. palavra vs. Sp. palabra, from
Lat. parabolam.
Latin
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o
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b
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l
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ī
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t
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ā
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r
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e
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||
Early Spanish
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o
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b
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l
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i
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d
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a
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r
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t > d:
sonorization
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||
Spanish
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o
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l
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v
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i
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d
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a
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r
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b/l metathesis (+spelling
change)
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The Spanish verb olvidar reflects three sound
changes with respect to its source in Latin source, in addition to the spelling
change, which is not a sound change since b and v have the same
pronunciation in Spanish. The loss of final e is found in this and all
Spanish words when the word-final e was preceded by a consonant produced
in the front of the mouth, such as r, l, d, etc. (cf. Part
I, Chapter 10). The second change was also universal: a voiceless stop
consonant (p, t, or k) became voiced (b, d, g)
between two vowels (or between a vowel and a liquid consonant). The third change
is less common, but not at all rare and it involves the changing of place or
metathesis of the consonants b and l.
The Latin
verb oblīvīscī is thought to have been formed from the prefix ob‑
meaning ‘towards’ or ‘against’ (from the preposition ob, with the same
meaning), plus the variant (allomorph) līv‑ of the root lēv‑ of
the adjective lēvis ‘smooth, smoothed, not rough’ (not to be confused
with its homograph lĕvis ‘light, not heavy, etc.’ source of learned Sp. leve
‘slight, light, etc.’). To these word parts, the derivational suffix -īsc‑ī
was added, which was the passive inchoative form of the suffix ‑ēsc‑ĕre
that formed verbs from adjectives with the meaning ‘to become (adjective)’. The
verb oblīvīscī would have had originally the meaning ‘to start to become
smooth, erased’ (ob‑līv‑īsc‑ī). All this is, of course, speculation,
since there are no attested (recorded) non-deponent or active inchoative
versions of this verb in Classical Latin. There must have been some in early
Latin, but they are not attested. The active inchoative would have been *oblīvēscĕre.
As for the non-deponent version of this verb, one theory is that it was *oblīvīre
‘to start being erased (made smooth)’.[2]
Latin
derived first conjugation (‑ā‑re) verbs from other verbs, which at first
at least had a frequentative aspectual meaning, that is one that expressed
repetition of the action or event in question (cf. Part I, Chapter 8,
§8.4.3.6). Frequentative verbs were derived from the passive participle stem of
the base verb in question. In the case of the verb oblīvīscī, the
passive participle was oblītus, as we have seen, and from its stem oblīt‑
we get the frequentative version of this verb, Vulgar Latin *oblītāre (not
attested), the source of Sp. olvidar (ob‑līt‑ā‑re). It should be
mentioned that the form of the passive participle of third conjugation deponent
verbs was often not a regular or predictable one, just like in the case of oblītus.[3]
Vulgar Latin
*oblītāre is the source of the verb meaning ‘forget’ in most other
Romance languages as well, such as Portuguese olvidar, French oublier,
Catalan oblidar, Occitan doblidar, and Italian obliare or obbliare.
Note that only the Spanish and Portuguese reflexes of this Vulgar Latin verb
have the b-l metathesis. Although Italian has borrowed obliare or
obbliare from Latin in later times, the most common verb to express this
meaning in this language is dimenticare. The source of It. dimenticare
is not totally clear, though it clearly contains the root ment‑ of the
word mēns meaning ‘mind’.
[1] Note that in Latin there were also
archaic, reduced forms of the first two principal parts of this veerb, namely oblīscor
and oblīscī, instead of the more common ones in Classical Latin, oblīvīscor
and oblīvīscī.
[2] The
theory that there was a verb *oblīvīre
‘to start being erased (made smooth)’ from which the deponent verb oblīvīscī
was derived is by found in Seldeslachts, Herman (2001), Etudes de
morphologie historique du verbe latin et indo-europeen. Leuven: Peeters, as
reported in de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and
the other Italic Languages, Leiden: Brill.
[3] The following
are some third conjugation deponent verbs with present tense - present infinitive - passive participle forms),
showing that passive participle forms were not always predictable, since these unusual
verbs had undergone many sound changes over time: oblī‑vīscor - oblī‑vīscī - oblī‑tus ‘to
forget’; ăp-iscor - ap‑īscī - ap‑tus ‘to reach after something, in order
to take, seize, or get possession of it’; comm-ĭnīscor - comm-ĭnīscī - comm‑entus ‘to think
out, contrive, invent’; exper‑gīscor - exper‑gīscī - exper-rectus ‘to
awake, to rouse or bestir one’s self’; fru‑or - fru-ī - fru‑ctus/fru‑itus ‘to
have the benefit of, to enjoy (a person, physical object, or abstract thing)’; gr‑ădĭor
- gr‑adī - gr-essus
‘to take steps, step, walk, go, advance’; īrā‑scor - īrā-scī - īrā-tus
‘to be angry, to be in a rage’; lā-bor - lābī - lā-psus ‘to totter, be ready to fall, begin to sink, to
give way, be loosened’; lŏ‑quor
- lŏq‑uī - lŏ‑cūtus/lŏ‑quūtus/lŏ‑cātus ‘to speak, talk, say’;
nanc‑īscor
- nanc‑īscī - na(n)c‑tus ‘to get, obtain, receive, etc.’; nā‑scor - nā‑scī - nā-tus ‘to be born, begin
life, etc.’; nī-tor
- nī‑tī - nī-sus/nī‑xus ‘to bear upon, press
upon, lean, support oneself, etc.’; or‑ior - or‑īrī - or‑tus
‘to arise, rise, stir, get up, etc.’; pac-iscor - pac‑īscī - pac-tus ‘to
make a bargain, contract, or agreement, etc.’; pă-tior - patī - pa-ssus ‘to
suffer, endure, etc.’; prŏf‑icīscor - prŏf‑icīscī - prŏf‑ectus ‘to set
out, depart, leave’; que-ror - querī - que-stus ‘to complain, lament; to
be indignant’; se-quor - sequī
- se-cūtus ‘to
follow, come or go after’; ul-ciscor - ul‑cīscī - ul‑tus ‘to avenge’.
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