‘IF A FRIEND HAS SUDDENLY BECOME …’

The article considers the semantic foundations and models of representation for the notion ‘friend’ in the Indo-European languages. Con- ceptualization of the notion ‘friend’, having extremely deep historical roots, is widely represented in the Indo-European languages as a result of interaction between the notions ‘own’ / ‘close’ and ‘relative’ / ‘of the same kin, tribe’ / ‘member of comradeship’, cf. ved. svakīya ‘own’, pl. ‘friends’, gr. ἑταĩρος ‘comrade, companion’ and ‘close, accompanying’, lat. sodālis (*sve-dh-) ‘comrade, companion, member of comradeship’, ved. jánya‘of the same tribe’,‘relative or friend’, etc. A variation of the model ‘own’ / ‘close’ → ‘friend’ is a semantic schema ‘having a (family, spiritual, professional, etc.) relationship, cf. ved. su-bandhu ‘relative’, ‘good friend’, VERB ‘well-related’, gr. σύζυγος VERB ‘conjugate’, poet. ‘co-mate, brother’, got. ga-juka ‘comrade’ (cf. ga-juk ‘pair’); oss. xæzgūl from *xærz-kūr ‘soliciting (kūr) (for another person) good (xærz<xorz)’ = hist. ‘well-wisher’, ‘friend’; rus. dial. ближник ‘relative; relative in law’, ‘neighbor, comrade, friend, chum’, etc. Areal designations for a friend diversify this original schema concre- tizing it by different ways and add more nomination models in which a friend is defined from the perspective of affective and rational evalua- tions: ‘friend’ as ‘involved in the same business (with a subject); brother- in-arms’, ‘fit, suitable’, ‘habitual’, ‘needed, necessary (to a subject)’, e.g. lit. bičiùlis ‘chum, friend’ = hist. ‘co-owner of bees’; old rus. обычник ‘close friend’; lat. necessarius, -i, m. ‘close person, intimate friend; relative’, necessitudo, -inis f. pl. ‘relatives, friends’.