Priestley, Carol (2012). Koromu temporal expressions: Semantic and cultural perspectives. In Luna Filipovic, & Kasia Jaszczolt (Eds.), Space and time in languages and cultures: Language, culture and cognition (pp. 143-165). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hcp.37.12pri
This chapter examines different types of time expressed in Koromu (Kesawai), a Papuan language, to show the interaction of time expressions with cultural and environmental contexts and to investigate semantic description. Meanings are explicated in a metalanguage based on semantic primitives. The discovery of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) temporal primes and investigation of semantic molecules, non-primitive meanings that occur within the meaning of other concepts, promotes comparative and contrastive semantic description. The finding of culture-specific concepts referring to ‘time-’ and ‘event-based’ time intervals, linear and cyclical time, suggests that a range of expressions need consideration when cultural perspectives are assessed.
