Tag: (E) drink

(2020) Minimal English – Lexicography

Barrios Rodríguez, María Auxiliadora (2020). Minimal and inverse definitions: A semi-experimental proposal for compiling a Spanish dictionary with semantic primes and molecules. In Lauren Sadow, Bert Peeters, & Kerry Mullan (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 3. Minimal English (and beyond) (pp. 191-212). Singapore: Springer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9979-5_10

Abstract:

This chapter reflects on the possibility of compiling a dictionary largely based on a metalanguage of semantic primes and molecules, using a type of definitions that I call ‘minimal and inverse’. It describes progress to date against the backdrop of two research projects I have been associated with in the last few years.

The first one is a collaborative project that has to date involved ninety student researchers working towards an NSM-based learning tool for students of Spanish as a second/foreign language. To find out whether NSM definitions could be put to good use in language learning materials, the student researchers have been subjecting different groups of informants to a number of test definitions over a period
of two academic years.

The second project, running in parallel with the first, is a pilot study, carried out by myself, towards a Spanish dictionary consisting of
minimal and inverse definitions. More than one hundred definitions have so far been constructed, essentially out of semantic primes and molecules. All have been tested on different groups of informants, but only sixty definitions have been found to be satisfactory.

The chapter includes an analysis of some of the data and a discussion of a range of methodological issues. Its main finding is that, on current
expectations, not only is it possible to build a small dictionary mainly based on primes and molecules using minimal and inverse definitions, but it can be extremely rewarding to engage in such a venture in the context of a collaborative project with student researchers.

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

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(2010) Natural Semantic Metalanguage

Peeters, Bert (2010). La métalangue sémantique naturelle: acquis et défis [Natural Semantic Metalanguage: achievements and challenges]. In Jacques François (Ed.), Grandes voies et chemins de traverse de la sémantique cognitive (pp. 75-101). Leuven: Peeters.

Written in French.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach, and of those who, on the basis of superficial readings, may have reached the hasty conclusion that the Wierzbickian approach had nothing to offer them, this article provides an overview that is as systematic as possible: it leaves out nothing that is essential, either with respect to what has already been achieved (the «achievements»), or with respect to what remains to be done (the «challenges»). In reality, the NSM approach provides all those who do not remain indifferent to the desire to be understood, as much by scholars as by untrained readers, with a way to overcome the «crossing the creek» syndrome referred to by Georges Kleiber (2001: 3): «This syndrome, noted for the first time in the Middle Ages among the Oelenberg monks (in Reiningue, near Mulhouse) is well-known: sufferers keep hopping from one rock onto another, without ever falling into the water, but they forget they need to cross the river!» The Natural Semantic Metalanguage is shown to be at once unique and multi-faceted, with the English and French versions being used to briefly present its lexicon and grammar. Before moving on to the challenges, the notions of «cultural script» and «culture» are briefly dealt with. We particularly insist on some of the most recent tasks NSM practitioners have embarked on. These include the formulation of a typology of pathways enabling one to deal more effectively with the issue of language and cultural values, the compilation of the list of semantic molecules to be used to increase the readability of semantic explications, and the elaboration of «semantic templates» for the explication of words belonging to specific semantic categories such as emotions, physical contact verbs, speech act verbs etc.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012) NSM primes, semantic molecules, semantic templates

Goddard, Cliff (2012). Semantic primes, semantic molecules, semantic templates: Key concepts in the NSM approach to lexical typology. Linguistics, 50(3), 711-743.

DOI: 10.1515/ling-2012-0022

Abstract:

The NSM approach has a long track record in cross-linguistic lexical semantics. It is therefore not surprising that it has a clear theoretical position on key issues in lexical semantic typology and a well-developed set of analytical techniques.

From a theoretical point of view, the overriding issue concerns the tertium comparationis. What are the optimal concepts and categories to support the systematic investigation of lexicons and lexicological phenomena across the world’s languages? The NSM answer to this question is that the necessary concepts can – and must – be based on the shared lexical-conceptual core of all languages, which NSM researchers claim to have discovered over the course of a thirty-five year program of empirical cross-linguistic semantics. This shared lexical-conceptual core is the minilanguage of semantic primes and their associated grammar.

In addition, NSM researchers have developed certain original analytical constructs that promise to enhance the power and systematicity of the approach: in particular, the notions of semantic molecules and semantic templates. This paper sets out to explain and illustrate these notions, to report some key analytical findings (updated, in many cases, from previously published accounts), and to extrapolate their implications for the further development of lexical typology.

This paper contains detailed explications of the English verb drink and its closest Kalam counterpart ñb ‘eat/drink’, as well as of the English verb cut and its Japanese counterpart 切る kiru.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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