Etymology of Lexical Items: (A Linguistic Study in the Light of Communication Theories and the Making of Historical Dictionaries)

Abstract

Lexicographical linguistic study constitutes one of the most important fields of scientific research. This paper, entitled “Etymology of Lexical Items: A Linguistic Study in the Light of Communication Theories and the Making of Historical Dictionaries,” addresses the issue of contemporary linguistic usages within the framework of morphological theories and their representations, as well as theories of communication and the compilation of dictionaries and their configurations. The researcher adopts the descriptive-analytical approach, alongside other complementary methods—most notably the historical and comparative approaches—to achieve several objectives. Chief among these are: understanding the Arabic lexicon from the perspective of historical etymological inquiry; contributing to its development and modernization; and expanding the circles of integration and collaboration between Arab linguists and technical specialists. This is pursued by drawing attention to modern departmental systems that incorporate interdisciplinary sciences from which linguists benefit procedurally and practically, grounding linguistic material on computerized digital databases, while technical specialists deploy their skills in integration with members of the humanities departments.

This study necessitated the distribution of its material into a preface that includes an introductory definition of etymology, followed by two chapters: the first entitled Morphology and Arabic Lexical Materials, and the second entitled Derivation and Phonetic and Semantic Transformations. The study concludes with a conclusion presenting the main findings and recommendations, in addition to a list of the most important sources and references.