Further exploration of the formation of the concept “harm” in the slavic languages

The article continues to explore the problem of the motivational component of the nuclear lexeme in the lexical and semantic field of ‘harm’ in the Slavic languages.

The comparison of motivational and genetic characteristics of the lexemes whose semantics closely resembles that of the Rus. vred, the comparison of the semantic fields of homonymous etymological nests *uer-d-, into which Yu. Pokorniy includes the Slav. *vеrdъ and its various meanings (‘abscess’, ‘disease’ and ‘lesion’), the absence of meanings similar to ‘abscess, boil’ in the Greek equivalents of the Old Slav. врѣдъ, as well as the checking of facts on a number of Old Germanic languages regarding the presence/absence of genetic relatedness to the reflexes of the Slav. *vеrdъ, give a strong reason to suppose that the primary meaning for the Slav. *vеrdъ was an abscess-like wound, an inflammatory injury which manifested itself on the skin and was related to a disease (which is also the source of the ‘disease’ meaning of *vеrdъ derivatives). It seems plausible that this nomination was formed in order to distinguish it from a wound caused by a sharp object or a weapon, usually expressed with the Slav. *rana, supposedly formed from the same Indo-European root *urōnā.