Natural semantic metalanguage

The natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) is a linguistic theory based on the conception of Polish professor Andrzej Bogusławski. The leading proponents of the theory are Anna Wierzbicka at Warsaw University and later at the Australian National University who originated the theory in the early 1970s (Wierzbicka 1972), and Cliff Goddard at Australia's Griffith University (Goddard & Wierzbicka 1994, 2002).

Approach

Linguists of the NSM school rely on semantic primitives (or semantic primes; those are simple, indefinable, and universally lexicalized concepts) for analysis and reductive paraphrase (that is breaking complex concepts down into simpler concepts).

Research in the NSM approach deals extensively with language and cognition, and language and culture. Key areas of research include lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, phraseology and pragmatics, as well as cross-cultural communication.

Languages studied in the NSM-framework include English, Russian, Polish, French, Spanish, Malay, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Ewe and East Cree,^[1] as well as Swedish.^[2]

Semantic primitives

The declared NSM primes have stabilized as a list of irreducible meanings, coded here as English words with specific senses. These primes are hypothesized to be language universals, with most of them having been tested across a wide variety of languages without encountering disconfirmation.

It is very important to realize that some of the exponents in the following list have meanings in English that are not shared with other languages, but when used as an exponent in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, we are only concerned with the meanings that are universal.

The English exponents of semantic primitives^[3]

substantives: I, YOU, SOMEONE, PEOPLE, SOMETHING/THING, BODY
relational substantives: KIND, PART
determiners: THIS, THE SAME, OTHER/ELSE
quantifiers: ONE, TWO, MUCH/MANY, SOME, ALL
evaluators: GOOD, BAD
descriptors: BIG, SMALL
mental predicates: THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR
speech: SAY, WORDS, TRUE
actions, events, movement, contact: DO, HAPPEN, MOVE, TOUCH
location, existence, possession, specification: BE (SOMEWHERE), THERE IS, HAVE, BE (SOMEONE/SOMETHING)
life and death: LIVE, DIE
time: WHEN/TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME, FOR SOME TIME, MOMENT
space: WHERE/PLACE, HERE, ABOVE, BELOW, FAR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE
logical concepts: NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF
intensifier, augmentor: VERY, MORE
similarity: LIKE/WAY

File:Semantic primes table.jpg

Citizendium image based on Goddard (2002)

Explication

An explication is a breakdown of a non-prime concept into prime ones.

E.g., Someone X killed someone Y:
someone X did something to someone else Y
because of this, something happened to Y at the same time
because of this, something happened to Y's body
because of this, after this Y was not living anymore^[4]

Sources

Goddard, Cliff. 1998. Semantic Analysis: A practical introduction. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
Goddard, Cliff (ed.) 2006. Ethnopragmatics – Understanding discourse in cultural context. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Goddard, Cliff (ed.) 2008. Cross-Linguistic Semantics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Goddard, Cliff and Wierzbicka, Anna (eds.). 1994. Semantic and Lexical Universals – Theory and Empirical Findings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Goddard, Cliff and Wierzbicka, Anna (eds.). 2002. Meaning and Universal Grammar: Theory and Empirical Findings (2 volumes). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Harkins, Jean & Anna Wierzbicka. 2001. Emotions in Crosslinguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Peeters, Bert (ed.) 2006. Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1972. Semantic Primitives. Frankfurt: Athenäum.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1992. Semantics, Culture, and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1999. Emotions Across Languages and Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 2003 (1991). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. 2nd edition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 2006. English: Meaning and culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

References

^ "The natural semantic metalanguage approach", in Bernd Heine and Heiko Narrog (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis (2009) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
^ Pedersen, Jan (2010), "The different Swedish tack: An ethnopragmatic investigation of Swedish thanking and related concepts", Journal of Pragmatics 42:1258–1265.
^ "Natural Semantic Metalanguage: The state of the art", in C. Goddard (ed.) Cross-Linguistic Semantics (2008), p.33.
^ Goddard, Cliff. "The Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach" (PDF). Retrieved 27 May 2013.

External links

[1] "The natural semantic metalanguage approach", in Bernd Heine and Heiko Narrog (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis (2009) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[2] Pedersen, Jan (2010), "The different Swedish tack: An ethnopragmatic investigation of Swedish thanking and related concepts", Journal of Pragmatics 42:1258–1265.

[3] "Natural Semantic Metalanguage: The state of the art", in C. Goddard (ed.) Cross-Linguistic Semantics (2008), p.33.

[4] Goddard, Cliff. "The Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach" (PDF). Retrieved 27 May 2013.

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