Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/sъmetati

Meaning and Descendants?

@Sławobóg Where did you find the listed descendants and meaning? Did you take them from a source (I don't see any of the given references thoroughly discussing the verb) or you discern them yourself? I'm asking because the currently proposed "to gather, to collect" doesn't seem to be primary. In principle, *sъmetati probably meant "to sweep, to jostle, to hurl around" = semelfactive of *sъmesti. The sense of collecting and gathering, mentioned in Borys, is most likely secondary, either as a denominal factative of *sъmetь (“sweepings”) or an extended sense of "to hurl, to dump off" [I can't tell exactly].

Regarding the descendants: I won't bother checking if Serbo-Croatian has a descendant from Proto-Slavic *sъmetati, since it lacks an easily accessible online resource, but at least the currently given Serbo-Croatian сметати (“to bother”) is certainly not. It reflects instead *sъmętati (“to stir, to confuse”). Clarification is also needed for Slovene: across its dialects one finds both zmetati (“to sweep up, to toss down”) < *sъmetati and zmetati (“to stir, to churn”) < *sъmętati.

PS I also doubt that prefix *sъ- in *sъmetati actually reflects Proto-Slavic *sъ- (“eu-”). If I had to guess, based on the meaning, it should be either *sъ(n)- (“com-”) or *sъ(n)- (“off”). [Bezimenen] 2A00:23C7:9C97:8201:8589:82D8:740E:6298 18:24, 15 May 2023 (UTC)