Traditionally etymology is concerned with the study of lexical items. However in this book
etymology is understood more generally as a research approach concerned with the question of
how a particular word or structure came into existence. As a result etymology can investigate
the origin of words (lexical etymology) but also structural elements such as morphemes and
constructions (structural etymology). This pioneer volume assembles thirteen etymological
studies over a broad range of languages ranging from Europe to Australia and the Pacific
focusing in particular on Australian Indigenous languages. The phenomena investigated in the
contributions comprise the origin of Australian Indigenous place names and kinship terms
constructions and word histories in Oceanic languages typological investigations as well as
papers on the methodology of etymological research. This volume is intended for a scholarly
audience including intermediate and advanced university students with an interest in historical
linguistic especially in etymology but also semantics toponymy and language contact.
