Notes on Some Russian Wordsand Their Indo-European Relations

Abstract

1. Etymology of озóрный, озорнóй ‘mischievous, misbehaving'; 2. Variants of мнить ‘to think, imagine' 1. The root element -зор- extracted from the demorphologized (decomposed) verb ра-зор-ить is probably borrowed from Ossetic (Digor) zol ‘skew, oblique' > ‘false, unjust, unfair' after it underwent rhoticism. The proposed hypothesis helps to etymologize the above verb rejecting previous attempts making use of Proto-Slavic preverb *orz combined with the verb *oriti ‘to destroy'. 2. Russian verbs мнить and млеть [if refl ecting Indo-European *m(V)R-] are related assuming the alternation мн- /мл-. Both verbs belong to the semantic fi eld of thinking, imagining and, specifi cally, of praying.