Browsing results for Logical concepts

(1989) NSM primes

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2020.

Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Semantic primitives – The expanding set. Quaderni di semantica, 10(2), 309-332.

Abstract:

The set of hypothetical semantic prim(itiv)es proposed in earlier works is shown to be in need of considerable expansion. This outcome is due primarily to the work of Cliff Goddard. The present paper surveys a set of 28 elements, including – in addition to survivals from earlier sets – several elements proposed by Goddard, and some by Andrzej Bogusławski.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2017) Creoles – Semantic molecules, NSM primes: logical concepts

Published on June 13, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Levisen, Carsten & Aragón, Karime (2017). Lexicalization patterns in core vocabulary: A cross-creole study of semantic molecules. In Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen & Eeva Sippola (Eds.), Creole studies – Phylogenetic approaches (pp. 315-344). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.211.14lev. PDF (open access)

The study of semantic domains is important for creolistics, given the complex label-meaning configuration in creoles vis-à-vis the European lexifiers. Due to lexical semantic creativity in the creolization process as well as subsequent developments and contacts with lexifiers, substrates, and other contact varieties, each domain seems to have its own history, its own configuration.

Comparing creole words in four different semantic domains, the authors contrast the labels and lexicalizations of social concepts, body part terms, environmental concepts and logical concepts. They focus on the following meanings:

‘children’, ‘women’, ‘men’, ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘wife’, ‘husband’ (social molecules)
‘head’, ‘eyes’, ‘ears’, ‘mouth’, ‘nose’, ‘hands’, ‘legs’ (body part molecules)
‘sun’, ‘sky’, ‘ground, ‘water’, ‘fire’, ‘day’, ‘night’ (environmental molecules)
‘not’, ‘maybe’, ‘can’, ‘because’, ‘if’, ‘very’ and ‘more’ (semantic primes: logical concepts)

Phylogenetic networks are used to compare and contrast lexicalization patterns between domains.

It is shown that the core semantic-conceptual constructs investigated in the study tend to cluster with their lexifiers, but that there are important differences across domains as well: the label-meaning configurations of the social domain stand out as the most diverse, and the environmental domain as the most homogenous.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2018) Dene – FEEL, CAN, CAN’T, PART

Published on September 2, 2018. Last updated on September 4, 2018.

Holden, Josh (2018). Expressing concepts of FEEL, CAN, CAN’T, and PART in Denesųłiné. Working Papers in Dene Languages 2017, 55-72. Fairbanks, Alaska: Alaska Native Language Center.

This paper details the author’s attempt to elicit the semantic primes FEEL, CAN, CAN’T, and PART in the First Nations language Denesųłiné (Dene/Athabaskan language family, Northern Canada, with the goal of empirically testing NSM claims and shedding light on the Denesųłiné lexicon. If these primes are not found, it is shown how the concepts are expressed in Denesųłiné.

Although, in the author’s opinion, the findings suggest the need for changes to the current semantic prime inventory, they should not be viewed as discounting the NSM approach. Dene shows many cases where, even though one can posit the existence of an NSM exponent, there are still language-specific differences in denotational range and even meaning. One wonders how exact the correspondence must be, or even whether this exactness can even be verified without a deep, native-like knowledge of both source and metalanguage. Still, semantic primes as a concept may be useful in identifying a core of the lexicon where there is significant overlap in word meanings between languages, without these being true universals that can be elicited in the same core contexts.

The issues of translatability and equivalence raised by the NSM approach are also highly relevant to Dene language documentation, which is virtually always bilingual: a linguist translates words from the source language to English when glossing. The phenomenon of lexical incommensurability, in which a meaning in the studied language has no direct equivalent in the metalanguage language of description, can render any one-word translation culturally specific and therefore inaccurate as a representation of the source language meaning. This is problematic because future heritage learners and researchers will only be able to access the Indigenous lexicon through the prism of a flawed or incomplete English translation. Diligent cross-linguistic semantic analysis of the type that the NSM school proposes can help build a more authentic record of the lexicon. The NSM approach of explicating culture-specific meanings is therefore a valuable tool in language documentation efforts, although more empirical studies will be needed to test the universality of the semantic primes, and future revisions to the NSM inventory may be required in light of their results, and of the Denesųłiné data discussed here.


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