Semantics and Etymology in Yāska’s Nirukta
The meghaḥ … mehati iti sataḥ Type of Etymological Explanation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9893644 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paolo Visigalli (0000-0001-9944-2738, Shanghai Normal University Department of World History China Shanghai, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 65 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 122-143 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Indo-Iranian Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0019-7246 • E-ISSN: 1572-8536 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15728536-06502004 |
| OpenAlex | W4284993742 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
This paper provides a new interpretation of a type of etymological explanation (T) characteristic of Yāska’s Nirukta . The proposed interpretation sheds light on Yāska’s distinctive ideas on the relation between semantics and etymology. Exemplified by the occurrence meghaḥ ... mehati iti sataḥ , T conveys the following information: the noun to be explained is a name ( nāman -) that denotes a certain thing ( sattva -) as characterized by a certain action. In the example, the noun meghaḥ is a name that denotes the thing cloud as emitting rain-water ( mehati ). T operates with two ideas intersecting semantics and etymology: (1) names denote things in relation to the latter’s association with a name-giving action; (2) one thing can receive various names in relation to various name-giving actions. While (1) underlies Yāska’s etymologies in general, (2) informs T as well as the structural organization of noun groups in the Nighaṇṭu ‘Thesaurus’, the word-list constituting the root-text commented upon in the Nirukta . Recognition that (2) underlies both T and the Nighaṇṭu noun groups is consistent with the observation that most nouns explained with T occur in the Nighaṇṭu
Etymology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Noun · Proper noun · Relation (database · Root (linguistics · Semantics (computer science · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
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