Wierzbicka, Anna (1995). Universal semantic primitives as a basis for lexical semantics. Folia Linguistica, 29(1-2), 149-169.
Three hundred years later we have, I think, a much better idea than our seventeenth-century predecessors could have, of what the universal semantic primitives look like, and also, of how they combine with each other to produce larger semantic configurations — within a word and without a sentence. We now have, therefore, a much more solid foundation for lexical semantics, both descriptive and contrastive. Until, however, the search for universal semantic primitives is finalized and until the language-independent syntax of these primitives is well understood, the basis of lexical semantics must
continue to be regarded äs somewhat shaky, and all our definitions must continue to be regarded as more or less provisional. There is no reason, though, why this realization should discourage us in our efforts. The main thing is to be moving in the right direction.
