Bogusławski, Andrzej (1991). Semantic primes for agentive relations. Lingua Posnaniensis, 32/33, 39-64.
There is much plausibility in the claim that all agentive relations are based on a semantic prime that is constitutive of them and that is lexicalised in all of the world’s languages. In English, the lexical exponent of that prime is DO. A bold and, methodologically speaking, absolutely justified attempt at finding a decomposition of DO appears in Wierzbicka (1975, 1980). More recent work by the same author (e.g., 1989) questions that decomposition and argues (following our own intuitions) that a valid semantic decomposition of DO is unfeasible. In this paper, I argue that agentive relations are in fact based on either of two semantic primes, not one. It is suggested the following agentive primes should be recognised (expressed here in their basic English shape):
(i) doing (something)
(ii) doing (something) with OR doing (something) to
Note (added by Bert Peeters): This paper predates the concept of valency options, which has since been operationalised in NSM methodology. It contains no explications but is limited to discussion of its main thesis/theses.
