Browsing results for Language families

(2008) Koromu – ‘Inalienable possession’

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Priestley, Carol (2008). The semantics of “inalienable possession” in Koromu (PNG). In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 277-300). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.18pri

This chapter examines the semantics of “inalienable possession” constructions in Koromu, a Madang language of Papua New Guinea. Person and number suffixes or enclitics mark head nouns in possessive nominal constructions and indicate the person and number of the “possessor”. Inanimate, animate and
partially animate nominal constructions describe relationships between two inanimates, two animates, or an animate and an inanimate referent, respectively. The key relationship between the two entities varies across these subtypes but rather than “possession” in the sense of ownership, it commonly
involves the concept ‘part of’; for example, in ‘parts of things’, ‘parts of the same thing’ and things which are ‘like a part of something’. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage is used to explicate the meaning of these constructions.

(2008) Makasai – Ethnogeometry

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Brotherson, Anna (2008). The ethnogeometry of Makasai (East Timor). In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 259-276). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.17bro

The identification of language universals has long been a topic of interest. This article tests a number of theories in relation to universal human conceptualisation of space, by analysing spatial concepts in the Papuan language Makasai (East Timor). This analysis is conducted within the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). This chapter provides detailed NSM explications for various Makasai shape adjectives, which are then compared and contrasted with spatial terms of English (Wiezbicka 2003, 2006). This analysis finds that while a number of posited language universals are indeed present in Makasai, others are not, and therefore should no longer be considered
universal. The chapter also demonstrates the value of using NSM in the search for language universals, and for analysing and comparing spatial terms across languages.

(2008) NSM primes (“Specificational BE”, “abstract THIS/IT”)

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2008). New semantic primes and new syntactic frames: “Specificational BE” and “abstract THIS/IT”. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 35-57). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.06god

In section 1, we propose a “new” semantic prime — specificational BE — and show how it can be used to analyse some classic problems in the semantics of naming and reference. In section 2, we explore a newly recognised syntactic option of the prime THIS, here termed “abstract THIS/IT”. Both the new possibilities are involved in the semantics of specificational and focus constructions of English. These are the topic of section 3.

(2008) Portuguese – AMOR

Published on May 10, 2008. Last updated on October 19, 2019.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2008). Amor em português [Love in Portuguese]. In Anna Kalewska (Ed.), Diálogos com a Lusofonia: Colóquio comemorativo dos 30 anos da secção Portuguesa do Instituto de Estudos Ibéricos e Ibero-americanos da Universidade de Varsóvia (pp. 408-420). Warszawa: Universidade de Varsóvia, Instytut Studiów Iberoamerykanskich UW. PDF (pre-publication version with different page numbering)

Written in Portuguese.

Every culture has its own ways of speaking, thinking, acting and even feeling, which are reflected in language. In this paper, I analyse a lexical meaning of one Portuguese word, amor. Having as a base a corpus consisting of Lisbon fado songs, I try to look for a semantic invariant of the word amor in fado and to define it in terms of a Portuguese-based NSM.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2008) Portuguese – Key words in Lisbon ‘fado’ songs

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2008). Fado – podejście semantyczne: Próba interpretacji słów kluczy [Fado – a semantic approach: An attempt at interpreting key words]. Wroclaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT.

Written in Polish.

This book interprets a dozen Portuguese-based lexical units, mainly from the domain of emotion, selected through a frequency-based survey of Lisbon fado songs. It is the published version of the author’s PhD thesis, University of Wrocław (2007).


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

(2008) Russian, English – Cultural values: frankness

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 9, 2020.

Гладкова, А. Н. [Gladkova, Anna] (2008). Концепт ‘откровенность’ в русской и английской языковых картинах мира [The concept of ‘frankness’ in Russian and English linguistic world-views]. In Нина Арутюнова [Nina Arutjunova] (Ed.), Логический анализ языка: Между ложью и фантазией [Logical analysis of language: Between lie and fantasy] (pp. 502-514). Москва [Moscow]: Индрик [Indrik].

Written in Russian.

Abstract:

Исследования в области межкультурной прагматики показывают, что для русского языка и культуры характерно наличиел установки (или культурных скриптов) на прямое и открытое выражение своих мыслей и чувств [Вежбицка 2002; Гловинская 2003]. Похожие уста­ новки характерны и для других культур — например, испанской [Aznarez, Gonazalez 2006]. Однако в некоторых культурах (например, англосаксонской и малазийской) подобное правило менее значимо или отсутствует вообще [Goddard 1997; Wierzbicka 2006а]. Доминиро­ вание определенной культурной установки находит отражение в се­ мантике слов, которые по своему значению связаны с этой установ­ кой [Апресян 2006; Вежбицка 2002; Зализняк, Левонтина, Шмелев 2005; Wierzbicka 2006а]. Данную гипотезу интересно проверить при сравнительном семантическом анализе слов­переводных эквивален­ тов из языков с различными культурными правилами. В работе про­ водится семантический анализ наречия откровенно в значении харак­ теристики манеры речи, которое может быть связано с установкой на открытое и прямое выражение своих мыслей и чувств, характерное для русской культуры. Данное наречие сравнивается с его ближай­ шими переводными эквивалентами candidly иfrankly в английском языке, где доминируют другие культурные скрипты [Wierzbicka 2006а].

Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2008) Russian, English – Cultural values: tolerance

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 17, 2018.

Gladkova, Anna (2008). Tolerance: New and traditional values in Russian in comparison with English. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 301-329). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.19gla

An earlier version of this paper was published as:

Gladkova, Anna (2005). New and traditional values in contemporary Russian: Natural Semantic Metalanguage in cross-cultural semantics. In Ilana Mushin (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2004 Conference of the Australian Linguistics Society. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/93.

This chapter examines the recent trend in contemporary Russian towards increased lexical borrowing from English. In particular, it compares and contrasts the meanings of a recently borrowed value term tolerantnyj with its English equivalent tolerant and the traditionally closest Russian equivalent терпимый terpimyj ‘tolerant/indulgent/forbearing’. A detailed contrastive semantic analysis demonstrates that, although tolerant and терпимый terpimyj are translational equivalents, their meanings do differ and reflect different cultural attitudes across the two societies involved.

The work also shows that the meaning of the new Russian term tolerantnyj does not fully coincide with the meaning of the English tolerant, as it reflects the Russian value system. The analysis is conducted using NSM as its main analytical tool.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2008) Serbo-Croat – Pragmatics of ‘se-verbs’

Published on August 31, 2018. Last updated on November 5, 2021.

Kurteš, Svetlana (2008). An investigation into the pragmatics of grammar: Cultural scripts in contrast. In Martin Pütz, & JoAnne Neff-van Aertselaer (Eds.), Developing contrastive pragmatics: Interlanguage and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 67-85). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110207217.1.67

This paper looks at verbal reflexivity and middleness as exemplified in a set of related verbs in Serbo-Croat, known as ‘se-verbs’. The performed analysis is monodirectional and corpus-based, starting from Serbo-Croat and observing the translation equivalents of the ‘se-verbs’ in English. The pragmatic principles underlying the rules of usage of these verbs, often rather neglected in traditional reference grammars and relevant pedagogical materials, need to be established and analysed in the socio-cultural context in which the examined instances were found to be naturally occurring. The author discusses these pragmatic principles and proposes ways of introducing them into  language teaching curricula and relevant pedagogical materials. She also argues for a recognition of Wierzbicka’s ‘cultural scripts’ in foreign language teaching enabling the learner to interpret messages in terms of their underlying cultural norms and values. Examples are taken mainly from modern political discourses and public communication.


Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2008) Tarifyt Berber – MOMENT

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 20, 2018.

Elouazizi, Noureddine, & Trnavac, Radaslava (2008). Identification and syntax of semantic prime MOMENT in Tarifyt Berber. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 241-258). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.15elo

This study contributes to our understanding of the status of the newly proposed NSM semantic prime MOMENT using data from Tarifyt Berber. The syntax of the primary Tarifyt Berber exponent ġar is exclusively adverbial and requires a biclausal construction. We argue that this reflects the universal “conceptual syntax” of MOMENT, because the aspect-like modification provided by MOMENT requires the implicit presence of an “eventive” frame. The English sentence It happened in one moment, for example, is elliptical for a semantically equivalent,
but more explicit, expanded version: When it happened, it happened in one moment. English expressions such as at that moment and for a moment also lack direct equivalents in Tarifyt Berber.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2008) Universal human concepts

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.

Goddard, Cliff, & Anna Wierzbicka (2008). Universal human concepts as a basis for contrastive linguistic semantics. In María de los Ángeles Gómez González, J. Lachlan Mackenzie, & Elsa M. González Álvarez (Eds.), Current trends in contrastive linguistics: Functional and cognitive  perspectives (pp. 205-226). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/sfsl.60.13god

This study sets out to demonstrate that the NSM metalanguage of semantic primes provides a stable language-neutral medium for fine-grained contrastive semantic analysis, in both the lexical and grammatical domains. The lexical examples are drawn from “yearning-missing” words in English, Polish, Russian and Spanish, while the grammatical examples contrast the Spanish diminutive with the hypocoristic “diminutive” of Australian English. We show that the technique of explication (reductive paraphrase) into semantic primes makes it possible to pin down subtle meaning differences which cannot be captured using normal translation or grammatical labels. Explications for the Polish, Russian and Spanish examples are presented both in English and in the language concerned, thus establishing that the metalanguage being used is transposable across languages.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2009) Balinese – NSM primes, language acquisition

Published on April 29, 2018. Last updated on September 26, 2018.

Arnawa, Nengah (2009). Bahasa Bali usia anak-anak: Kajian Metabahasa Semantik Alami [Children’s Balinese: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage study]. Linguistika, 16(30). PDF (open access)

This study seeks to test the hypothesis that children acquire the exponents of universal semantic primes sooner than they do other semantic material. The children observed were Balinese 4-6 year olds. The Balinese exponents of the NSM primes belong to the so-called neutral style or kepara, a vocabulary style that is unmarked and generic.

It was found that the 4-6 year olds are able to produce 58 out of the sixty exponents in their utterances. The exponents not produced by the Balinese children in our sample are AKLINYENGAN ‘MOMENT’ and MIRIB ‘MAYBE’. The absence of the semantic prime AKLINYENGAN is due to the uncertainty of the lexical reference; similarly, MIRIB ‘MAYBE’ is absent because of cognitive limitations: children are not able to use the knowledge they have to predict what is going to happen.

The exponents that have the widest distribution in Balinese are ICANG ‘I’ and BENA ‘YOU’. However, the children in our sample were not able to construct sentences using ICANG ‘I’ and BENA ‘YOU’ as psychological objects.

This paper is about language acquisition. It does not contain any explications or scripts. No rating is provided.

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(2009) Componential analysis

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on March 13, 2019.

Goddard, Cliff (2009). Componential analysis. In Gunter Senft, Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Culture and language use (pp. 58-67). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hoph.2.06god

Previously issued as:

Goddard, Cliff (2005). Componential analysis. In Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics 2003-2005 (12 pages). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hop.m.comm1

The 2005 text is a heavily revised version of:

Goddard, Cliff (1995). Componential analysis. In Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman, & Jan Blommaert (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: Manual (pp. 147-153). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Abstract:

Componential analysis (CA) in the broadest sense, also known as ‘lexical decomposition’, is any attempt to formalize and standardize procedures for the analysis of word meanings. CA often aspires to represent the cognitive or psychological reality of the speakers, and to shed light on correlations between language and culture.

The idea that word meanings may be broken down into combinations of simpler components is an ancient one, supported by a range of facts. These include the efficacy of paraphrase, the intuitively felt relationships (such as antonymy, hyponymy, partonymy) between word meanings, the fact that sentences may be tautologous, contradictory or odd due to the interplay of the meanings of their constituent words. The assumption of decomposability underlies the definitional side of traditional lexicography. For expository purposes, methods in CA may be described under four headings: the structuralist tradition, linguistic anthropology, generative and typological studies, and paraphrase semantics (1995) / Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (2005/2009). Some other trends and problems are briefly discussed.

Explications included in the 1995 version relate to the emotion term indignant, the speech act verb suggest, the interjection Wow! and the kinship term mother.

Explications included in the 2005 and 2009 versions relate to the emotion term sad, the social category friend, the performative verbs threaten and warn, and the semantic molecule animal.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2009) Emotion research

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Language and metalanguage: Key issues in emotion research. Emotion Review, 1(1), 3-14. DOI: 10.1177/1754073908097175

Building on the author’s earlier work, this paper argues that language is a key issue in understanding human emotions and that treating English emotion terms as valid analytical tools continues to be a roadblock in the study of emotions. Further, it shows how the methodology developed by the author and colleagues, known as NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage), allows us to break free of the shackles of English psychological terms and explore human emotions from a culture-independent perspective. The use of NSM makes it possible to study human emotions from a genuinely cross-linguistic and cross-cultural, as well as a psychological, perspective and thus opens up new possibilities for the scientific understanding of subjectivity and psychological experience.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2009) English – ‘Bullying’, ‘harassment’

Published on August 18, 2018. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). The language of “bullying” and “harassment”. Quadrant, 53(12), 102-107.

While there is no shortage of various attempted definitions of bullying, they are usually lacking in clarity, precision and explanatory value. This is partly because to provide an adequate definition of bullying one needs to consider closely not only human behaviour but also the meanings of words and ways in which these meanings can be accurately defined and intelligibly explained.

What matters here is not how the word should be used, or what it should mean, but rather, what it actually means as it is normally used by “ordinary people”. It is this plain meaning manifested in “ordinary people’s” use of the word which functions as part of the shared conceptual
currency of speakers of English. To identify this meaning accurately and intelligibly we need a workable methodology. Such a methodology can be found in the so-called “NSM” (from “Natural Semantic Metalanguage”) approach. Using this approach, we can overcome the inadequacies of traditional models of definition, and we can actually explain the meaning of words, in ways which can be both cognitively accurate and socially and educationally useful.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2009) English – ‘Communication’, ‘language’

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Goddard, Cliff (2009). The ‘communication concept’ and the ‘language concept’ in everyday English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 29(1), 11-25. DOI: 10.1080/07268600802516350

This paper presents a semantic/conceptual analysis of the concepts of communication and language, as represented in the lexicon of everyday English. Section 1 gives a brief orientation to the method to be employed, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka. In the main body of the paper, I propose semantic explications for several senses of the English words communicate, communication and language, supporting these explications by reference to naturally occurring data, and, in the case of polysemy, by reference to distinctive grammatical or phraseological properties of the polysemic meanings. The paper closes with observations on how the differing semantics of the ‘communication concept’ and the ‘language concept’ may contribute to the differing orientations of linguistics and communication studies.

Lexical Semantics; Communication; Language Concept; NSM

(2009) English – Metaphor

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.

Wearing, Catherine (2009). Metaphor and the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 1017-1028. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2009.01.004

Within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework, it is claimed that metaphorical content is paraphrasable by means of explications based on semantic primes. This paper examines this account of metaphor, explores the importance of paraphrasing metaphors for the NSM approach, and argues that the prospects for successful paraphrases are less promising than has been claimed. It is then shown that the explications that have been proposed for the metaphors a soft wine and language is a mirror of the mind do not suffice to explain how these metaphors work, and it describes how NSM explications must be supplemented to generate a more adequate explanation.

No actual improvements to the explications themselves are proposed.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2009) English – SENSE

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Exploring English phraseology with two tools: NSM semantic methodology and Google. Journal of English Linguistics, 37(2), 101-129. DOI: 10.1177/0075424209334338

A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 10 (pp. 395-406) of:

Wierzbicka, Anna (2010). Experience, evidence, and sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. New York: Oxford University Press.

The study of phraseology, which not long ago was often dismissed as a linguistic activity of only minor interest, has now come into its own and is an increasingly popular and diversified field, with many different approaches and foci of interest. Significantly, regardless of their particular focus and goals, more and more writers adopt corpus-based approaches to phraseological phenomena. This article arises from a larger study of various phraseological networks based on the English cultural key word sense (as in, e.g., a sense of humour, a sense of direction and a sense of relief), and it explores some types of sense-based collocations with two tools: the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) semantic methodology and Google. The article argues that the use of corpora and the Web combined with the use of NSM methodology opens new perspectives for the semantic and cultural study of English phraseology.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2009) English (Australia) – Not taking yourself too seriously

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.

Goddard, Cliff (2009). Not taking yourself too seriously in Australian English: Semantic explications, cultural scripts, corpus evidence. Intercultural Pragmatics, 6(1), 29-53. DOI: 10.1515/IPRG.2009.002

In the mainstream speech culture of Australia (as in the UK, though perhaps more so in Australia), taking yourself too seriously is culturally
proscribed. This study applies the techniques of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) semantics and ethnopragmatics (Goddard 2006b, 2008; Wierzbicka 1996, 2003, 2006a) to this aspect of Australian English speech culture. It first develops a semantic explication for the language-specific expression taking yourself too seriously, thus helping to give access to an ‘‘insider perspective’’ on the practice. Next, it seeks to identify some of the broader communicative norms and social attitudes that are involved, using the method of cultural scripts (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2004). Finally, it investigates the extent to which predictions generated from the analysis can be supported or disconfirmed by contrastive analysis of Australian English corpora as against other English corpora, and by the use of the Google search engine to explore different subdomains of the World Wide Web.

(2009) English, Malay – Proverbs

Published on November 19, 2018. Last updated on November 19, 2018.

Годдард, Клифф [Goddard, Cliff] (2009). “Следуй путем рисового поля”: семантика пословиц в английском и малайском языках [“Sleduy putem risovogo polya”: semantika poslovits v angliyskom i malayskom yazykakh / “Follow the way of the rice plant”: The semantics of proverbs in English and Malay (Bahasa Melayu)]. Жанры речи [Zhanry rechi / Speech genres], 6, 184-207.

Russian translation of a paper presented at the Wenner-Gren Foundation Symposium on Ritual Communication, Portugal, 17-23 March 2007. Updated and published in English as chapter 8 of:

Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

No English abstract available. The proverbs explicated (in Russian) include: (English) A stitch in time saves nine, Make hay while the sun shines, Out of the frying pan into the fire, Practice makes perfect, All that glitters is not gold, Too many cooks spoil the broth, You can’t teach an old dog new tricks; Where there’s smoke there’s fire; (Malay) Ikut resmi padi ‘Follow the way of the rice plant’, Seperti ketam mangajar anak berjalan betul ‘Like a crab teaching its young to walk straight’, Binasa badan kerana mulut ‘The body suffers because of the mouth’, ‘Ada gula, ada semut ‘Where there’s sugar, there’s ants’, Seperti katak di bawah tempurung ‘Like a frog under a coconut shell’, Keluar mulut harimau masuk mulut buaya ‘Out from the tiger’s mouth into the crocodile’s mouth’, Bila gajah dan gajah berlawan kancil juga yang mati tersepit ‘When elephant fights elephant it’s the mousedeer that’s squashed to death’.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2009) English, Malay – Proverbs

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Goddard, Cliff (2009). “Like a crab teaching its young to walk straight”: Proverbiality, semantics, and indexicality in English and Malay. In Gunter Senft, & Ellen B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 103-125). New York: Berg.

My objective is to give a balanced, contrastive treatment of the textual semantics, cultural-historical positioning, and interdiscursivity of proverbs in two widely different speech cultures. In what follows, I look first at contemporary English, addressing the way proverbs, as instances of a language-specific category, can be identified on linguistic evidence. I propose a template in the NSM metalanguage to articulate the semantic framing inherent in the proverb genre (essentially, the semantic content of “proverbiality”) and demonstrate the utility of the approach with a full analysis of several English metaphorical proverbs (“A stitch in time saves nine”) and maxims (“Practice makes perfect”). I discuss aspects of the interdiscursivity of proverbs in English, with particular reference to the ethos of modernity. In the remainder of the chapter, I apply a parallel analysis and discussion to proverbs (peribahasa) in contemporary Malay, including the metaphorical Malay proverb Seperti ketam mengajar anak berjalan betul ‘like a crab teaching its young to walk straight’.