Hill, Deborah (1994). Longgu. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 311-329). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.25.16hil
In general it has not been difficult to find lexical exponents of all of the proposed semantic primitives in Longgu. Indeed, in most cases (e.g. TWO, ALL, KNOW, WANT) there is a lexical representation which clearly corresponds to the primitive. However, making the link between the existence of an exponent (and, if present cross-linguistically, a lexical universal) and a primitive is clearly not as simple as finding the exponent. In the case of THINK, the evidence suggests that the meaning of the lexical exponent (una) is not centred around ‘think’ but around ‘thusly’. This somehow seems unsatisfactory and it raises the question of the expected relationship between a primitive and its exponent.
The ease with which lexical exponents of other primitives (IF, HAPPEN) are being replaced with other lexemes also seems unsatisfactory, even if it can be argued that this merely indicates the existence of two exponents of the same primitive.
The other points that have arisen from looking for these lexical exponents in Longgu have been ones of methodology and, in the case of PART OF, questioning whether the primitive is targeting a range of functions that are not captured by one lexical exponent in the language. The methodological problem was most evident in the case of OTHER. Despite the use of canonical sentences it remained difficult to separate the meaning conveyed by the English lexeme from the primitive.
These problems may not be insurmountable to deal with but the idea of finding lexical universals which correspond to semantic primitives would be all the more convincing if they could be adequately dealt with.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
