He is not just telling us where words come from: he is teaching us what they mean and about the things for which they stand. As he says himself, one of the tasks he is undertaking is the “differentiation” of things, by noting the features that distinguish one thing from another, as, for example, cruelty distinguishes the tyrant from the king (§I.31). All of this is reminiscent of far older philosophical works, for instance Plato, who told a similar story about etymology and its significance in his Cratylus, and whose dialogue the Sophist explored the idea that understanding something means
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