EN
History of etymological thought shows two different concepts of etymology. The first one links one word with another, as well as a of group of sounds, with 'meanings' attributed to them in order to explain deep and covert sense of the word in question. This approach is typical of ancient philologists and philosophers such as Yāska and Plato. The second approach, so-called modern etymology, studies historical relation between language forms and senses, as well as historical derivational models in the wide sense of the term 'derivation'. Achronic etymologizing is to be strictly distinguished from diachronic etymology. This article addresses the questions of what modern linguistic method and conceptions in etymological researches could adopt from functional-explanatory etymologizing, and how modern scholarships should understand ancient 'etymologies'.