Etymology and Etymologies in the Lexicon

Abstract

This chapter considers the etymological material that remains in the Lexicon and why it is there. It suggests that because pronouns, prepositions, temporal adverbs like ‘now’ and ‘yesterday’, and basic verbs like ‘want’ and ‘come’ are part of everyday vocabulary, they are likely to be inherited. And because they are likely to be inherited, they are likely to be inherited into other languages as well, thereby giving evidence of cognates and allowing for the reconstruction of preforms from the distant past. Because of all this, it is easy enough for the compilers of a dictionary to provide at least minimal—and typically semantically unexciting—etymological information about them.