The word 'textual' is a direct descendant of the Latin 'textualis', which itself derives from 'textus', the past participle of 'texere' meaning "to weave". This ancient metaphor equated the construction of written language with the interlacing of threads into fabric. Over centuries, 'textus' evolved from its literal sense of "woven cloth" to signify the "style or texture of a literary work" and finally to its modern core meaning of "written words". The suffix '-ual' (from Latin '-alis') was attached to form an adjective, thus 'textual' literally means "relating to woven material", but semantically captures the idea of pertaining to the written or verbal structure of a work.

Structure: text (written words) + ual (adjective suffix) - text: From Latin 'textus' (woven thing, fabric, style of a literary work). In this word, it functions as the core root meaning "written words". - ual: A variant of the suffix '-al', from Latin '-alis', used to form adjectives meaning "of, relating to, or characterized by". Its functional role is to convert the noun 'text' into an adjective.