Tag: (E) hands

(2017) Nouns

Ye, Zhengdao (2017). The semantics of nouns: A cross-linguistic and cross-domain perspective. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 1-18). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0001

This introductory chapter explains the distinctive features which give the volume its coherence and uniqueness in the studies of the semantics of nouns. It explains the rationale of the volume, the importance of adopting a cross-linguistic and cross-domain perspective, and the unified framework which the contributors use for meaning analysis and meaning representation. In particular, it introduces the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) methodology, its approach to the studies of semantic content and the conceptual structure of concrete vocabulary over the last four decades, and its latest methodological developments, such as semantic molecules and semantic templates. The introduction also provides an overview of each chapter in the volume.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2007) Shape and colour

Wierzbicka, Anna (2007). Shape and colour in language and thought. In Andrea C. Schalley, & Drew Khlentzos (Eds.), Mental states: Vol. 2. Language and cognitive structure (pp. 37-60). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.93.05wie

“Colour” and “shape” are concepts important to the speakers of English and of many other languages. They are not, however, universal: there are many languages which have no words corresponding to the English words colour and shape, and in which questions like “what colour is it?” or “what shape is it?” cannot be asked at all. Clearly, speakers of such languages do not think about the world in terms of “colour” and “shape”. How do they think about it, then?

This study shows that by using an empirically discovered set of universal semantic primes which includes see and touch we can effectively explore ways of construal of the visual and tangible world different from those embedded in, and encouraged by, English.

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(2015) Natural Semantic Metalanguage

Wierzbicka, Anna (2015). Natural semantic metalanguage. In Karen Tracy, Cornelia Ilie, & Todd Sandel (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of language and social interaction (pp. 1076-1092). New York: John Wiley.

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is a minilanguage corresponding, evidence suggests, to the shared core of all languages. This minilanguage has as many versions as there are human languages. For example, there is an English NSM, a Russian NSM, and a Chinese NSM, with matching minilexicons and minigrammars. Each such minilexicon has a set of fewer than 100 words and a very simple grammar. For example, the lexicon of the English NSM includes the words good, bad, big, small, very, someone, and something, and the lexicon of the Russian NSM, the matching Russian words: xorošij, ploxoj, bol’šoj, malen’kij, očen, kto-to, and čto-to, with the same combinatorial possibilities (e.g., very good, očen’ xorošij). The grammar of the English NSM does not include any of the complex, language-specific machinery of full English,with its relative clauses, gerunds, participles, and so on, but it does include for example if clauses — which, evidence suggests, can be found in all languages. Thus, one can say in English (and in NSM English): “if you do this, something bad can happen to you”, and one can say in Russian (and in NSM Russian) the literal equivalent of that English sentence: “esli ty ėto sdelaeš, čto-to ploxoe možet slučit’sja s toboj”.

This encyclopedia entry introduces some of the machinery of NSM, including primes, NSM grammar, semantic molecules, and cultural scripts. It also discusses the role of “NSM English” or “minimal English” in the era of globalization.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2007) Semantic molecules

Goddard, Cliff (2007). Semantic molecules. In Ilana Mushin, & Mary Laughren (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2006 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. PDF (open access)

This paper explains and explores the concept of semantic molecules in the NSM methodology of semantic analysis. A semantic molecule is a complex lexical meaning that functions as an intermediate unit in the structure of other, more complex concepts. The paper undertakes an overview of different kinds of semantic molecule, showing how they enter into more complex meanings and how they themselves can be explicated. It shows that four levels of “nesting” of molecules within molecules are attested, and it argues that while some molecules, such as ‘hands’ and ‘make’, may well be language-universal, many others are language-specific.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2010) Environmental semantic molecules

Goddard, Cliff (2010). Semantic molecules and semantic complexity (with special reference to “environmental” molecules). Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 8(1), 123-155. DOI: 10.1075/ml.8.1.05god

In the NSM approach to semantic analysis, semantic molecules are a well-defined set of non-primitive lexical meanings in a given language that function as intermediate-level units in the structure of complex meanings in that language. After reviewing existing work on the molecules concept (including the notion of levels of nesting), the paper advances a provisional list of about 180 productive semantic molecules for English, suggesting that a small minority of these (about 25) may be universal. It then turns close attention to a set of potentially universal level-one molecules from the “environmental” domain (‘sky’, ‘ground’, ‘sun’, ‘day’, ‘night’ ‘water’ and ‘fire’), proposing a set of original semantic explications for them. Finally, the paper considers the theoretical implications of the molecule theory for our understanding of semantic complexity, cross-linguistic variation in the structure of the lexicon, and the translatability of semantic  explications.


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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(2016) Semantic molecules

Goddard, Cliff (2016). Semantic molecules and their role in NSM lexical definitions. Cahiers de lexicologie, 109, 13-34. DOI: 10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-06861-7.p.0013

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach is well known for its use of reductive paraphrase as a mode of lexical definition (conceptual analysis) and for its claim to have discovered an inventory of irreducible lexical meanings — semantic primes — that are apparently universal in the world’s languages. It is less well known that many NSM definitions rely crucially on semantic molecules, i.e. certain non-primitive meanings that function alongside semantic primes as building blocks in the composition of yet more complex lexical meanings.

This paper considers aspects of the NSM theory of semantic molecules, including: first, the notion of molecules within molecules (e.g. ‘mouth → ‘water’ → ‘drink’); second, the distribution of semantic molecules in the world’s languages: some are universal or near-universal, e.g. ‘hands,’ ‘children,’ ‘water’, others are widespread but not universal, e.g. ‘money’, and still others are specific to particular languages or linguistic/cultural areas; third, the emerging notions of “small molecules” and lexicosyntactic molecules. The paper includes explications for about twenty-five semantic molecules that are posited to be universal or near-universal.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2017) Koromu – Body parts

Priestley, Carol (2017). Some key body parts and polysemy: A case study from Koromu (Kesawai). In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 147-179). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0006

This chapter discusses body part nouns, a part of language that is central to human life, and the polysemy that arises in connection with them. Examples from everyday speech and narrative in various contexts are examined in a Papuan language called Koromu and semantic characteristics of body part nouns in other studies are also considered. Semantic templates are developed for nouns that represent highly visible body parts: for example, wapi ‘hands/arms’, ehi ‘feet/legs’, and their related parts. Culture-specific explications are expressed in a natural metalanguage that can be translated into Koromu to avoid the cultural bias inherent in using other languages and to reveal both distinctive semantic components and similarities to cross-linguistic examples.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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