ABSTRACT
Concern with the structure of Proto-Indo-European and the early dialects has always seemed more attractive to linguists than attention to the lexicon: but the difficult work of assembling the data was begun early in the course of Indo-European studies. August Pott (1802-87) is the acknowledged pioneer in the effort. In his Etymologische Forschungen auf clem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen (1833-6) he set out to determine the words that could be identified for the early period of the family. His work must be credited as well for directing attention to phonology, which led to greater accuracy in representing forms. However, even the enlarged second edition (10 vols, 1859-76) suffers from the persistent notion that etymology, according to its early meaning, seeks out the true (Greek étumos) meaning of words.
