[Johannes Brockmeier]

I found the differentiation between etymology and word meaning rather interesting in today’s session. I was reminded of a substitute teacher we had at my German school. He was infamous for being into etymology and he used to go through our list of last names and deduced where they stemmed from historically.

It can be interesting for an etymologist or historians why there are nowadays names like “Miller” and “Mill” or in German “Bauer” or “Karrenbauer” etc.

It is not really relevant to the modern speaker however so we do not (or maybe cannot) divide names into morphemes. Maybe family names are a different category for themselves however.

I just found it interesting how this demonstrates that we look at modern ways of speaking in linguistics and do not have to know infinite genealogical knowledge to make sense of words and meanings.

[Johannes Brockmeier]

Hi Asena,

thanks for the explanation. What exactly is aspirating however? I can imagine that it is related to airflow (but isn’t any sound?). When I say spit or pit however,  I hear no major difference (when I pronounce it in RP English).

Thank you.

 

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