Farese, Gian Marco (2018). Is KNOW a semantic universal? Shiru, wakaru and Japanese ethno-epistemology. Language Sciences, 66, 135-150.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2017.09.001
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the debated question of the universality of ‘know’ as a concept available to speakers of all languages. The NSM view is that all languages have a lexical exponent for the concept expressed in English by the word know. Epistemologist Masaharu Mizumoto has suggested that Japanese is a counter-example, because in this language two verbs, 知る shiru and わかる wakaru, are used in propositional knowledge attributions and neither is, he claims, exactly equivalent to know. Drawing on linguistic evidence from a corpus of Japanese and from Japanese contemporary literature, this paper shows that 知る shiru corresponds exactly in meaning to the English know and is the only Japanese exponent of the universal semantic prime KNOW. An NSM semantic explication of わかる wakaru phrased in both English and Japanese is presented to show that わかる wakaru is a complex concept that can be explicated via 知る shiru, but not vice-versa.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
