South Slavic Lexicon in Balkanic Context, the Word Family of the Noun xala

Abstract

The paper offers a semantic analysis of the word family of the South Slavic *xala. Аttested in Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, this noun originally used to denote both the storm, tempest and the daemon causing it. According to popular beliefs the principal attributives of *xala are enormous size, strength and obesity, so the noun has secondarily developed such meanings as „a huge creature“, „a man or animal of enormous physical strength“, „an obese, greedy man“. The semantic complex of the noun proper has yielded various meanings of nominal derivatives, such as „windy“, „angry“, „to rage“, „to eat“, etc. Certain meanings within this word family have been developed under the influence of etymologicaly diverse, but formally and semantically close lexemes, Slavic (e.g. *xalъ „dirt(y)“, *xaliti „to hit; pet“) as well as non-Slavic (e.g. Gk. χαλ(ν)ã„destroy, demolish“, Tur. hal).