Browsing results for Romance Languages
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1986). Human emotions: Universal or culture-specific? American Anthropologist, 88(3), 584-594.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1986.88.3.02a00030
Abstract:
The search for ‘fundamental human emotions’ has been seriously impeded by the absence of a culture-independent semantic metalanguage. The author proposes a metalanguage based on a postulated set of universal semantic primitives, and shows how language-specific meanings of emotion terms can be captured and how rigorous cross-cultural comparisons of emotion terms can be achieved.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Chapter 3 (pp. 119-134) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1992), Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) dégout, (E) disgusted, (E) distasteful, (E) embarrassment/embarrassed, (E) fear/afraid, (E) homesick, (E) miss, (E) pine after, (E) repulsive, (E) revolting, (E) shame/ashamed, (E) shame/fear (Nhaalya), (E) tęsknić, (E) tęsknota
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1986). Italian reduplication: Cross-cultural pragmatics and illocutionary semantics. Linguistics, 24(2), 287-315.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1986.24.2.287
Abstract:
This article (a study in ethnopragmatics avant la lettre) examines the use and function of syntactic reduplication in Italian. Syntactic reduplication belongs to a system of illocutionary devices that, jointly, reflect some characteristic features of the Italian style of social interaction. Subtle pragmatic meanings such as those conveyed in Italian reduplication can be identified and distinguished from other, related meanings if ad hoc impressionistic comments are replaced with rigorous semantic representations relying on a semantic metalanguage derived from natural language. Comparisons are made with some other intensification devices in Italian and in English, such as the absolute superlative.
Translations:
Into Polish:
Chapter 8 (pp. 270-299) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1999), Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Into Russian:
Chapter 6 (pp. 224-259) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 7 (pp. 255-284) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Hill, Deborah (1987). A cross-linguistic study of value-judgement terms. MA thesis, Australian National University.
The purpose of this thesis is to try to establish the extent to which the words good, bad, true and right can be considered lexical universals. These words have been chosen because they are value-judgment terms that, individually, have been discussed at length by philosophers. It seems to be assumed by philosophers and semanticists that these words reflect concepts shared by speakers of all languages. By testing whether these words are candidates for lexical universals we can then see the extent to which this assumption is true.
On the basis of information from native speakers from 15 diverse languages, we can say that good and bad reflect language independent concepts (GOOD and BAD). However, in many languages, including English, the range of meaning of bad is narrower than the range of meaning of good. By looking at five of these fifteen languages we can see that the words right and true reflect concepts that are not language
independent. Thus, by taking a cross-linguistic approach, we can shed some light on the work done by language philosophers in the area of value-judgment terms.
The following languages are examined in this thesis: Arabic, Arrernte, Chinese (Mandarin), English, Ewe, Fijian, Finnish, Indonesian, Kannada, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Prototypes in semantics and pragmatics: Explicating attitudinal meanings in terms of prototypes. Linguistics, 27(4), 731-769.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1989.27.4.731
Abstract:
This paper shows how pragmatic meanings encoded in different forms of address (such as titles, ‘polite’ pronouns, and personal names, including their expressive derivates) can be portrayed in a rigorous and illuminating way in NSM, and that such explications allow us to make the similarities and the differences between different pragmatic categories clear and explicit – both within a language and across language and culture boundaries.
It is argued that abstract features such as ‘solidarity’, ‘familiarity’, ‘(in)formality’, ‘distance’, ‘intimacy’, and so on do not provide adequate tools for the description and comparison of pragmatic meanings, because they are not self-explanatory and because they do not have any constant, language-independent value. (For example, the ‘distance’ implied by the English title Mr. is different from that implied by the French title Monsieur; and the ‘familiarity’ implied by Russian forms such as Misa or Vanja is quite different from that implied by English forms such as Mike or John.)
It is shown that many pragmatic meanings have a prototypical semantic structure: they present emotions and attitudes in terms of certain prototypical human relationships, rather than in terms of fully specified mental states and social relations. In particular, social and existential categories, such as children, women, and men, or people one knows well and people one does not know, provide important signposts in the universe of human relations encoded in language. The exact role such prototypes play in different pragmatic categories can be shown in a precise and illuminating way in verbal explications constructed in the proposed metalanguage.
Translations:
Into Polish:
Chapter 2 (pp. 49-81) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1999), Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
More information:
More recent publications building on this one are:
Chapters 7 and 8 (pp. 225-307, 309-325) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1992), Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (personal names), (E) Father, (E) given names, (E) madame, (E) mademoiselle, (E) miss, (E) monsieur, (E) Mr, (E) Mrs, (E) Ms, (E) nicknames, (E) Pan, (E) Pani, (E) Professor, (E) red, (E) salty, (E) Sir, (E) uncle, (E) vous, (E) vy, (E) woman, (E) wy
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wilkins, David P. (1992). Interjections as deictics. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 119-158. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90049-H
Reissued in an abridged format as:
Wilkins, David P. (1995). Expanding the traditional category of deictic elements: Interjections as deictics. In Judith F. Duchan, Gail A. Bruder, & Lynne E. Hewitt (Eds.), Deixis in narrative: A cognitive science perspective (pp. 359-386). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
The paper examines some of the semantic and pragmatic consequences of a form being both a lexeme (i.e. a simple sign) and a conventional utterance. The approach presented here has far-reaching consequences for the manner in which interjections are identified, analyzed, and subclassified. In particular it it suggested that interjections have all the features attributed to utterances, including the facts that they convey complete propositions and have an illocutionary purpose. Given that interjections are context-bound, it is possible to observe that the referential arguments in the propositions conveyed by interjections are provided by context. As lexemes, interjections have ‘real’ semantic (i.e. propositional/conceptual) content, and within the decomposition of all interjections are basic deictic elements. These ‘primitive’ deictic elements are not tied referentially to any entities until they are placed in context. In this sense both a pragmatic and a semantic approach are required to account for interjections. Interjections are, therefore, shifters (indexicals) by virtue of being built semantically out of basic deictic elements and so should be considered a reasonable topic within the study of deixis.
Definitions, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to lexical decomposition, are proposed for a varied range of interjections from English, Mparntwe Arrernte (Central Australia), American Sign Language, and Italian.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Cincin!, (E) me (interjection), (E) Ngke!, (E) Ow!, (E) To'!, (E) Wow!
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Talking about emotions: Semantics, culture, and cognition. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3/4), 285-319. DOI: 10.1080/02699939208411073
Translated into Polish as chapter 4 of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1999). Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
The author argues that the so-called “basic emotions”, such as happiness, fear or anger, are in fact cultural artifacts of the English language, just as the Ilongot concept of liger, or the Ifaluk concept of song, are the cultural artifacts of Ilongot and Ifaluk. It is therefore as inappropriate to talk about human emotions in general in terms of happiness, fear, or anger as it would be to talk about them in terms of liget or song. However, this does not mean that we cannot penetrate into the emotional world of speakers of languages other than our own. Nor does it mean that there cannot be any universal human emotions. Universality of emotions is an open issue which requires further investigation. For this further investigation to be fully productive, it has to be undertaken from a universal, language and culture-independent perspective; and it has to be carried out in a universalist framework that is language and culture-independent. The author proposes for this purpose the Natural Semantic Metalanguage based on universal (or near-universal) semantic primitives (or near-primitives), developed over two decades by herself and colleagues, and she argues that the use of this metalanguage facilitates such a perspective and offers such a framework.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) angry, (E) displeased, (E) displeasure, (E) glücklich, (E) grateful, (E) happy, (E) heureux, (E) joy, (E) liget, (E) pleased, (E) remorse, (E) sad, (E) song, (E) tjituru-tjituru, (E) watjilpa, (E) złość
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 22, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Defining emotion concepts. Cognitive Science, 16(4), 539-581. DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog1604_4
This article demonstrates that emotion concepts – including the so-called basic ones, such as anger or sadness – can be defined in terms of universal semantic primitives such as GOOD, BAD, DO, HAPPEN, KNOW, and WANT, in terms of which all areas of meaning, in all languages, can be rigorously and revealingly portrayed.
The definitions proposed here take the form of certain prototypical scripts or scenarios, formulated in terms of thoughts, wants, and feelings. These scripts, however, can be seen as formulas providing rigorous specifications of necessary and sufficient conditions (not for emotions as such, but for emotion concepts), and they do not support the idea that boundaries between emotion concepts are “fuzzy”. On the contrary, the small set of universal semantic primitives employed here (which has emerged from two decades of empirical investigations by the author and colleagues) demonstrates that even apparent synonyms such as sad and unhappy embody different – and fully specifiable – conceptual structures.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) amazement, (E) anger, (E) appalled, (E) ashamed, (E) contented, (E) delighted, (E) depressed, (E) despair, (E) disappointment, (E) distressed, (E) embarrassed, (E) excited, (E) frightened, (E) frustration, (E) glücklich, (E) grief, (E) guilt, (E) happy, (E) heureux, (E) humiliated, (E) hurt, (E) indignant, (E) indignation, (E) pleased, (E) pride, (E) relief, (E) remorse, (E) sad, (E) sčastliv, (E) shocked, (E) sorrow, (E) sorry, (E) surprise, (E) triumph, (E) unhappy, (E) upset, (T) English
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Béal, Christine (1993). Les stratégies conversationnelles en français et en anglais: Conventions ou reflet de divergences culturelles profondes? [Conversational strategies in French and English: Convention or reflection of profound cultural divergence?] Langue française, 98, 79-106. DOI: 10.3406/lfr.1993.5835. PDF (open access)
The inspiration for this paper was found in A. Wierzbicka’s Cross-cultural pragmatics (1991). The author describes contrastively some of the rules which underlie conversation in French and in Australian English. The transcription of authentic recordings shows how each system works in isolation and what kind of conflicts emerge when both systems meet (in the case of native speakers or French using their own conversational strategies when expressing themselves in English). It is claimed that the observed differences reflect divergent cultural norms. underlie conversation in French and in Australian English. The transcription of authentic recordings shows how each system works in isolation and what kind of conflicts emerge when both systems meet (in the case of native speakers or French using their own conversational strategies when expressing themselves in English). It is claimed that the observed differences reflect divergent cultural norms.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Ritz, Marie-Ève (1993). La sémantique de la négation en français. Langue française, 98, 67-78. DOI: 10.3406/lfr.1993.5834. PDF (open access)
This paper shows how the use of a metalanguage consisting of primitives allows one to clarify some of the problems raised by negation in French. The latter is envisaged not from a static point of view, but, within the psychomecanic tradition, as a cinetism moving from more to less, from plus to minus. The author deals first with fuzziness in negation as achieved by the use of hedges, then looks at the “redundant” ne wich occasionally occurs in the language.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Monville-Burston, Monique (1993). Les verba dicendi dans la presse d’information [Verba dicendi in the information press]. Langue française, 98, 48-66. DOI: 10.3406/lfr.1993.5833. PDF (open access)
Written in French.
Following the example set by A. Wierzbicka’s English speech act verbs: A semantic dictionary (1988), the author explores on a more modest scale the area of French speech act verbs. Having identified, within a corpus of texts belonging to the newspaper press, the ten most frequent « verba dicendi », she sets out to provide a precise and rigorous definition for each, and she deals with the various constraints which rule their use by journalists.
Published on May 17, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Roberts, Catherine (1993). *Les paroles rapportées dans la presse. BA(Hons) thesis, University of Melbourne.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Peeters, Bert (1993). Commencer et se mettre à: une description axiologico-conceptuelle [Commencer and se mettre à: An axiologico-conceptual description]. Langue française, 98, 24-47. DOI: 10.3406/lfr.1993.5832. PDF (open access)
This paper examines in full detail all syntactic environments in which the Modern French aspectual verbs commencer and se mettre à are currently used. It also investigates the precise semantic differences between both verbs. Definitions are couched in semantic primitives. The author attempts to take a stand with respect to all observations made by others on these verbs over the last thirty years. Most examples are drawn from a corpus of weekly magazines and/or 20th century novels.
Tags: (E) commencer, (E) se mettre à
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Peeters, Bert, & Eiszele, Aileen (1993). Le verbe prendre pris au sérieux. Cahiers de lexicologie, 62, 169-184.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Curnow, Timothy Jowan (1993). Semantics of Spanish causatives involving hacer. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 13(2), 165-184. DOI: 10.1080/07268609308599494. PDF.
Abstract:
This paper examines the semantics of two Spanish causative constructions – the hacer-plus-infinitive construction and the hacer-plus-subjunctive construction using Natural Semantic Metalanguage to describe the semantic invariants of these two constructions. The analysis is limited to sentences which have animate causers. From the analysis of such sentences, it can be demonstrated that the two constructions have similar but distinct meanings. The hacer-plus-subjunctive construction encodes some idea of intentionality which is absent from the hacer-plus-infinitive construction. Where the construction with the subjunctive is used, the action involved is often (though
not always) indirect, or mediated, rather than direct, in which case the infinitive is usually (but not always) used.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (1994). Semantic and lexical universals in French. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 423-442). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wilkins, David P. (1995). Expanding the traditional category of deictic elements: Interjections as deictics. In Judith F. Duchan, Gail A. Bruder, & Lynne E. Hewitt (Eds.), Deixis in narrative: A cognitive science perspective (pp. 359-386). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
The bulk of this chapter is an abridged and re-edited version of an earlier paper (Wilkins, 1992). The primary purpose of that paper and, hence, this chapter is to argue that the traditional American linguistic view of deictic elements must be expanded to embrace interjections alongside the more standard members such as pronouns and demonstratives. To rescue interjections from the periphery of linguistic concerns requires a demonstration of two points: (a) that interjections share specific linguistic and communicative properties with more standard deictic elements, and (b) that it is possible to render a convincing account of the semantic structure and pragmatic usage of interjections. I attempt to expand this argument, and extend the demonstration of the two forementioned points by tying interjections in with the narrative and deictic center concerns that form the focus of the book in which the new version appears, but that were not explicitly covered in the original paper.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Cincin!, (E) me (interjection), (E) Ngke!, (E) Ow!, (E) To'!, (E) Wow!
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (1997). Les pièges de la conversation exolingue: le cas des immigrés français en Australie [The pitfalls of exolingual conversation: the case of French migrants to Australia]. Bulletin suisse de linguistique appliquée, 65, 103-118.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (1997). The syntax of time and space primitives in French. Language sciences, 19, 235-244. DOI: 10.1016/s0388-0001(96)00062-9
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Travis, Catherine (1998). Bueno: A Spanish interactive discourse marker. In Benjamin K. Bergen, Madelaine C. Plauché, & Ashlee C. Bailey (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General session and parasession on phonetics and phonological universals (pp. 268-279). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. DOI: 10.3765/bls.v24i1.1222. PDF (open access)
This paper presents a semantic analysis of the Spanish discourse marker bueno (something similar to ‘well’, ‘OK’, ‘alright’ in English). Four discourse functions of bueno are identified and discussed. On the basis of these functions, it is suggested that bueno is polysemous, and following the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach, two definitions to account for its range of use are proposed. It is argued that these definitions reflect the way in which the meaning of the discourse marker bueno is related to the adjective bueno, meaning ‘good’. Finally, we consider the role bueno may play in the communicative realization of the norms and values of the cultures in which it is used.
Tags: (E) bueno
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (1999). ‘Salut! Ça va? Vous avez passé un bon weekend?’ Journal of French Language Studies, 9, 239-257.
