Durst, Uwe (2003). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to linguistic meaning. Theoretical Linguistics, 29(3), 157-200. DOI: 10.1515/thli.29.3.157
After thirty years of language-internal, as well as cross-linguistic research, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) model developed by Anna Wierzbicka and her colleagues has turned out to be a most useful theoretical and methodological framework for semantic analysis in various linguistic, and even non-linguistic, domains. This paper argues that the NSM approach to semantics constitutes a new paradigm in linguistic research that is free from various shortcomings of other semantic frameworks. The first section provides a brief survey of the historical development of NSM theory from the early seventies up to the present stage [2003]. Its theoretical and methodological principles are outlined in sections 2 and 3, which also illustrate how, in some cases (e.g. HAPPEN), words that used to be explicated have been discovered to be primes. Section 4 illustrates its applications in various domains by means of examples from a number of languages. These include a range of ‘anger’-related words that are compared to one another.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
