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.

中文翻译：

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Yāska 的 Nirukta 中的语义和词源

本文对 Yāska 的一种词源解释 (T) 特征提供了一种新的解释尼茹塔. 拟议的解释阐明了 Yāska 关于语义学和词源学之间关系的独特观点。以事件为例meghaḥ……mehati iti sataḥ, T传达了以下信息：要解释的名词是一个名字（纳曼-) 表示某事 (萨埵-) 以某种动作为特征。在示例中，名词meghaḥ是一个名称，表示云排放雨水（梅哈蒂). T 运用两个交叉语义学和词源学的思想：（1）名称表示与后者与命名行为相关联的事物；(2) 一件事物可以因各种命名行为而得到不同的名称。虽然 (1) 通常是 Yāska 词源的基础，但 (2) 告知 T 以及词组中名词组的结构组织Nighanṇṭu'Thesaurus'，构成根文本的单词表尼茹塔. 认识到 (2) 是 T 和Nighanṇṭu名词组与大多数用 T 解释的名词出现在Nighanṇṭu.