<P> Comparative mythologists come from various fields, including folklore, anthropology, history, linguistics, and religious studies, and they have used a variety of methods to compare myths . These are some important approaches to comparative mythology . </P> <P> Some scholars look at the linguistic relationships between the myths of different cultures . For example, the similarities between the names of gods in different cultures . One particularly successful example of this approach is the study of Indo - European mythology . Scholars have found striking similarities between the mythological and religious terms used in different cultures of Europe and India . For example, the Greek sky - god Zeus Pater, the Roman sky - god Jupiter, and the Indian (Vedic) sky - god Dyauṣ Pitṛ have linguistically identical names . </P> <P> This suggests that the Greeks, Romans, and Indians originated from a common ancestral culture, and that the names Zeus, Jupiter, Dyaus and the Germanic Tiu (cf . English Tues - day) evolved from an older name, * Dyēus ph ter, which referred to the sky - god or, to give a perfect English cognate, the day - father in a Proto - Indo - European religion . </P> <P> Some scholars look for underlying structures shared by different myths . The folklorist Vladimir Propp proposed that many Russian fairy tales have a common plot structure, in which certain events happen in a predictable order . In contrast, the anthropologist Claude Lévi - Strauss examined the structure of a myth in terms of the abstract relationships between its elements, rather than their order in the plot . In particular, Lévi - Strauss believed that the elements of a myth could be organized into binary oppositions (raw vs. cooked, nature vs. culture, etc .). He thought that the myth's purpose was to "mediate" these oppositions, thereby resolving basic tensions or contradictions found in human life or culture . </P>

Which of the following traces stories themes and words back to their roots