On one «Obscure» Link among Derivatives of Russ. zveno

The purpose of the article is to propose an etymology of Russ. dial. south взвéнье ‘wolf’s lair’. Existent hypotheses of the word’s etymology seem to be unconvincing in semantic or structural aspects. According to the author’s hypothesis the word is derived from звено. This idea is founded on the author’s reconstruction of initial semantics and genesis of Proto-Slav. *zveno. There are several hypotheses about the origin of Proto-Slav. *zveno, but its etymology remains obscure. In previous work devoted to semantic reconstruction the analysis of Slav. lexical material enabled the author to define repeating semantic elements in Slav. words as ‘part of the whole’ / ‘one of clamped parts’ / ‘space between clamps’. Then the denotatum of Proto-Slav. *zveno was defined as ‘interval, space, orifice with some filling’. So the hypothesis was suggested about the genesis of Proto-Slav. *zveno from Ind.-eur. *ĝhēη- ‘gape’. The defined denotatum of Proto-Slav. *zveno as interval, space allowed the author to suppose that Russ. dial. south взвéнье ‘wolf’s lair’ is derived from звено, with pref. в(ъ)- (instead of usually preferred въз-).