Tag: (E) graceful

(1992) Definitions

Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Back to definitions: Cognition, semantics, and lexicography. Lexicographica, 8, 146-174.

DOI: 10.1515/9783110244120.146

A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 8 (pp. 237-257) of:

Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Abstract:

Different words mean different things; they make different contributions to the communicative acts humans engage in. The contributions made by different words can be compared if we have some standard of measure for describing their communicative potential (i.e., their meaning). As pointed out by Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, and others, such a common measure can be found in a set of words regarded as conceptual primes. We can single out in any language a group of words in terms of which the meaning (that is, the communicative potential) of all other words in that language can be described and compared. On this view of language, semantic description makes sense and will indeed be illuminating if it is anchored in a set of conceptual primes linked with lexical indefinables, that is, words (or morphemes, or expressions) whose meaning is relatively clear and intelligible, and in terms of which all the other words in the lexicon can be characterized revealingly and accurately.

This paper argues that the distinction between definable and indefinable concepts (and words) must be the cornerstone of any fruitful and linguistically relevant theory of definitions. It shows that meanings can be rigorously described and compared if they are recognized for what they are: unique and culture-specific configurations of universal semantic primitives.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2000) Polysemy

Goddard, Cliff (2000). Polysemy: A problem of definition. In Yael Ravin & Claudia Leacock (Eds.), Polysemy: Theoretical and computational approaches (pp. 129-151). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This paper outlines Anna Wierzbicka’s ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’ (NSM) method of semantic analysis and seeks to show that this method enables the traditional ‘definitional’ concept of polysemy to be applied both to individual lexical items and to lexico-grammatical constructions. There is also a discussion of how aspects of figurative language can be handled within the same framework. Naturally, given the space available, the treatment must be incomplete in many respects. The underlying contention is that many of the difficulties experienced by current treatments of polysemy do not spring from the nature of polysemy itself, but from more general problems of semantic and lexicographic methodology, in particular the lack of a clear, practical and verifiable technique for framing lexical definitions.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2004) English – “Active” metaphors

Goddard, Cliff (2004). The ethnopragmatics and semantics of ‘active metaphors’. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(7). 1211-1230. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.011

“Active” metaphors are a kind of metaphor that can be categorically distinguished from other metaphorical phenomena due to its reliance on “metalexical awareness”, detectable by linguistic tests as well as by intuition. Far from being a natural function of the human mind or a universal of rational communication, active metaphorizing is a culture-specific speech practice that demands explication within an ethnopragmatic perspective. The paper proposes an ethnopragmatic script (a kind of specialized cultural script) for active metaphorizing in English, and dramatizes its culture-specificity by ethnopragmatic case studies of Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara (central Australia) and Malay. Finally, in relation to English active metaphors, an attempt is made to demonstrate that expository metaphors have determinable meanings that can be stated as extended reductive paraphrases. The analytical framework is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory and the associated theory of cultural scripts.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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