Something about etymology

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lhykv
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Something about etymology

Post by lhykv »

Hi everyone.

Does anybody else use this only etymology dictionary? http://www.etymonline.com/
I think it is sometimes quite useful and can actually help in word-building.
For example, the word 'good' is originated from PIE root *ghedh- "to unite, be associated, suitable".
That's a kind of method, isn't it? [:P]
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Ahzoh
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Re: Something about etymology

Post by Ahzoh »

I wish that was useful for triconsonantal root building.
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Lambuzhao
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Re: Something about etymology

Post by Lambuzhao »

Ahzoh,

IMHO there are more than a handful (two hands-full?) of English words with an Arabic, Hebrew, even Coptic/Egyptian (ultimately) origin that you could possibly do 3cons. reconstructive relexing. [:P]
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Something about etymology

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Why would it not be useful?

Say you look up "thievery" and see its of whatever origin. Couldn't you then reduce the parent word to three main consonants and tie it to a verb like "to take, steal, remove"? What about part of being a 3con means you can only use root words with Semitic origin?
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Ahzoh
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Re: Something about etymology

Post by Ahzoh »

XXXVII wrote:Why would it not be useful?

Say you look up "thievery" and see its of whatever origin. Couldn't you then reduce the parent word to three main consonants and tie it to a verb like "to take, steal, remove"? What about part of being a 3con means you can only use root words with Semitic origin?
None of my roots are derived from Semitic roots, nor of Semitic origin.

It's not like that all!
But looking for prototypical abstract root meaning and all the *possible* meanings that could be derived from it (we know I'm following on the biliteral proto root theory)?
Who could think to derive "book" from a root that shares it's origin from "blood". I would think one isn't going to find many English words with an evolutionary path like English "tree" and "truth" being derived from some germanic root relating to straightness. Rather, you'd likely find a nominal root with origins relating to a more primitive nominal root, or a verb root deriving from a more primitive verb root. Or you might find loan words.

It is difficult to explain to you.
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sangi39
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Re: Something about etymology

Post by sangi39 »

One thing I find etymonline.com useful for is examples of semantic drift. I mean, I also use wiktionary.com to get semantic changes not specific to English, but either way it's quite helpful.

I don't know how that would affect your work with Vrkhazhian, though, since I'm not sure to what extent real-world Semitic languages allow semantic drift. I'd assume that as long as a given ablaut pattern or affix remains productive, the meaning wouldn't change much, but maybe association with similarly "shaped" words might force it towards a different meaning. Either way, I think that it's plausible to suggest that once a given derivational process becomes non-productive, a word formed by that process might be more open to semantic drift.

Say, for example, agentive nouns were, at one point, formed as CaCuCir, and this process was applied to a number of verbal roots, like N-K-R (teach - nakurir, teacher), L-M-D (read - lamudir, reader) and T-G-J (to lend - tagujir, lender).

Now, let's assume that this process was replaced by some other means of forming agentive nouns, possibly CaCCiman. Nakurir, lamudir and tagujir now have the synonyms nakriman, lamdiman and tagjiman, but the latter set are semantically more transparent, leaving the former set open for either deletion or semantic drift. Perhaps tagujir goes on to mean "banker" and then on to "greedy person" while lamudir goes on to mean "actor (in a play)" or "orator" (in the sense that they are reading from something) with nakurir going on to narrow in meaning to "religious teacher" or perhaps "teacher of the elite, private tutor" as opposed to someone who teaches a class or teaches in general.

Taking the example of N-K-R further, perhaps this triconsonantal root as a whole is replaced by a causative form of P-K-SH (learn - 'apkush-, to cause to learn, to teach), with the only remnant of N-K-R being found in nakurir. At this point we can clearly see that it is related to words such as lamudir and tagujir, it is unrelated to any current verbal root in the language.

Personally, I don't look at a proto-form and then look at all the forms it became, but you can find a few interesting items in etymological dictionaries [:)]

I think I might not have explained my point all too well there, but it seems that that's been a common thing so far in this thread [:P]
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Something about etymology

Post by eldin raigmore »

My current favorite (for the last many months, maybe years) is "infect". In Marcus Aurelius's time, in Latin, it meant "dye".
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