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Wierzbicka, Anna (1987). Predict, prophesy, forecast: Semantics and lexicography. In Roberto Crespo, Bill Dotson Smith, & Henk Schultink (Eds.), Aspects of language. Studies in honour of Mario Alinei: Vol. 2. Theoretical and applied semantics (pp. 509-523). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Abstract:

It is easy enough to say, as has become trendy in linguistics, that the concepts embodied in the three closely related verbs studied in this paper are linked by ‘family resemblance’, and that the boundaries between them are fuzzy. But where do we proceed from there? How do these words differ from one another? Dictionary users have the right to expect guidance and assistance. Their needs will not be met if a general slogan of ‘fuzziness of human concepts’ is all that the dictionaries of the future can add to the dictionaries of the past.

The present paper is predicated on different assumptions. It assumes that Plato’s golden dream of capturing the invariant, necessary and sufficient components of a given concept was realistic, not utopian. It offers a methodology with the help of which the dream can be fulfilled. That it really can be fulfilled is demonstrated not by abstract discussion but by actually doing what it has been alleged is impossible to do, i.e. by defining the three verbs in such a way that both the similarities and the differences between their meanings are explicitly shown. The tool required to carry out the task is a language-independent semantic metalanguage based on natural language; it makes rigorous comparison possible and at the same time ensures the elimination of the vicious circles that have plagued traditional dictionaries in general, and dictionaries of synonyms and related words in particular.

Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners