French name?

[Alina Israeli]

It seems to me that in French the distinction S/Z is much more  
important than in Russian or in English, although we should ask our  
resident French native speakers  Françoise and Philippe. Even Russian  
alternations happen on the morpheme line, not in the root, at least I  
cannot think of any such instances.

While Besson and Bessonet exist in French they are pronounced with S,  
while besogne is pronounced with a Z. Бессонэ to me is a lot  
closer to Бессонов, a last name that exists and which implies  
bez-sna 'sans sommeil', 'sleepless'.

Besson on the other hand means 'twin'.


On May 16, 2013, at 1:54 AM, Robert Chandler wrote:

>
> Here is the endnote that Eric Naiman, myself, and I forget who else  
> eventually came up with for the first appearance of this woman in  
> HAPPY MOSCOW.
> 	• Platonov mentions a hydraulic pump called “Bessonet-favor”  
> in his article “Goryachaya arktika” [Chutyo pravdy (Moscow:  
> sovetskaya rossiya, 1990), 335–340]. In Happy Moscow this name is a  
> pun. It recalls the achievements of world technology, and it is  
> erotically charged. Bessonet is reminiscent of the french besogne,  
> meaning “need” or even “sexual intercourse”; favor sounds  
> like faveur, meaning “favor,” also often in a sexual context.
>

Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
WLC, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu






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