Kryterium semantyczne w badaniach etymologicznych i językowych M.T. Warrona w świetle jego traktatu De lingua Latina

Abstrakt

This article presents the role of meaning in the linguistic and etymological researches of Marcus Terentius Varro, the Roman polymath and man of letters, in the light of his linguistic work De lingua Latina. The ancient theoreticians of language were not aware of diachronic linguistics and identified the concrete connections between words on the base of similarities in the sounds and in the meanings of the words being compared. For that reason, etymological and linguistic analyses of Varro very often rest on the semantic criterion which causes certain consequences for the character of his findings.