
Contents
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22.1 Introduction: etymology and words 22.1 Introduction: etymology and words
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22.2 A practical introduction to the core methods of etymology, through two short examples 22.2 A practical introduction to the core methods of etymology, through two short examples
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22.3 Teasing out core etymological methods from these examples 22.3 Teasing out core etymological methods from these examples
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22.4 Comparison and reconstruction 22.4 Comparison and reconstruction
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22.5 Words of unknown or uncertain etymology 22.5 Words of unknown or uncertain etymology
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22.6 Lexical merger and lexical split, and other types of ‘messiness’ in the histories of words 22.6 Lexical merger and lexical split, and other types of ‘messiness’ in the histories of words
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22.7 Conclusions 22.7 Conclusions
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22 Etymology
Get accessPhilip Durkin is Deputy Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. He has led the OED’s team of specialist etymology editors since the late 1990s. His research interests include etymology, the history of the English language and of the English lexicon, language contact, medieval multilingualism, and approaches to historical lexicography. His publications include The Oxford Guide to Etymology (OUP 2009) and Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English (OUP 2014).
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Published:03 March 2014
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Abstract
Etymology is an essential tool in tracing the origin and development of individual words. It is also indispensable for identifying, from a diachronic perspective, what the individual words of a language are, e.g. whether file ‘type of metal tool’ and file ‘set of documents’ share a common history or show different origins. However, words do not develop in isolation from one another. In extreme cases, complete lexical merger or lexical split can occur; such events can challenge the identification of words as entities with a single, discrete history. Etymological method depends on an interaction between arguments based on word form and word meaning. Regular sound changes are a cornerstone of etymology. Analysis of regular sound correspondences between languages, resulting from the operation of sound changes earlier than the surviving written records, is at the heart of the historical comparative method, by which proto-languages such as Indo-European have been identified.
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