Tag: (E) we

(2021) English, Murrinhpatha, Lardil – Pronouns, ‘We’

Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka (2021). “We”: conceptual semantics, linguistic typology and social cognition. Language Sciences, 83.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2020.101327

Abstract:

This paper explores “we-words” in the languages of the world, using the NSM method of semantic analysis. A simply phrased, cross-translatable explication for English ‘we’ [1pl] is proposed, suitable also for other languages with a single we-word. At the same time, it is argued that English ‘we’ co-lexicalises a second distinct meaning “we two” [1du], and that the same goes for other languages with a single we-word. The two explications are identical, except for being based on ALL and TWO, respectively. Both explications involve components of “I-inclusion” (roughly, ‘I am one of them’) and “subjective identification” (roughly, ‘I’m thinking about them all in the same way’). It is argued, furthermore, that both meanings (“we-all” and “we-two”) are likely to be found in all languages. To establish this, one has to take account of languages which manifest the “inclusive/exclusive” distinction. For such languages, evidence suggests that one of the two we-words contains a semantic component of “you-inclusion”, while the other is semantically unmarked. Languages whose “we words” encode kinship relations are also briefly considered. The analysis has implications for the typology of pronoun systems, for theorising about human social cognition, and for the lexical semantics of key social concepts.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2020) English – Cultural key words

Goddard, Cliff (2020). ‘Country’, ‘land’, ‘nation’: Key Anglo English words for talking and thinking about people in places. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 1(2), 8-27.

Abstract:

This is a corpus-assisted, lexical-semantic study of the English words ‘country’, ‘land’ and ‘nation’, using the NSM technique of paraphrase in terms of simple, cross-translatable words. The importance of these words and their derivatives in Anglophone public and political discourses is obvious. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that without the support of words like these, discourses of nationalism, patriotism, immigration, international affairs, land rights, and post/anti-colonialism would be literally impossible.

The study builds on Anna Wierzbicka’s (1997) seminal study of “homeland” and related concepts in European languages, as well as more recent NSM work that has explored ways in which discursively powerful words encapsulate historically and culturally contingent assumptions about relationships between people and places. The primary focus is on conceptual analysis, lexical polysemy, phraseology and discursive formation in mainstream Anglo English, but the study also touches on one specifically Australian phenomenon, which is the use of country in a distinctive sense which originated in Aboriginal English, e.g. in expressions like my grandfather’s country and looking after country. This highlights how Anglo English words can be semantically “re-purposed” in postcolonial and anti-colonial discourses.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1995) Various languages – ‘We’

Goddard, Cliff (1995). Who are we? The natural semantics of pronouns. Language Sciences, 17(1), 99-121. DOI: 10.1016/0388-0001(95)00011-J

Working within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework of Anna Wierzbicka, this study proposes reductive paraphrase explications for a range of first-person pronominal meanings. A general explicatory schema is first developed for English we. It is then shown how this can be elaborated to accommodate the inclusive/exclusive distinction, dual number and trial number, and how it can be applied to minimal-augmented systems. Data is taken from various languages of Australia and Asia. It is argued that NSM explications are preferable to conventional feature analyses for two reasons: they are less subject to charges of arbitrariness and obscurity; and they are located within a comprehensive theory of semantic representation.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1997) Grammatically encoded meanings

Goddard, Cliff (1997). Semantic primes and grammatical categories. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 17(1), 1-41. DOI: 10.1080/07268609708599543

This paper argues that all 55 of the semantic primes currently [1997] posited in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory are frequently found as components of grammatically encoded meanings. Examples are taken from a wide variety of the world’s languages, including Ewe, Kashaya, Polish, Quechua, Tibetan, and Wintu. They include phenomena such as pronoun systems, indefinites, classifiers, evidentials, locational deixis, tense systems, diminutives and augmentatives, and modality. Explications are proposed for absolute superlatives (-issimo), reflexive constructions, and constructions referred to as the active emotion construction, the emotional causer construction, the emotional stimulus construction, the impersonal emotion construction, and the object experiencer construction.

The study seeks to contribute to the development of a more rigorous semantic basis for grammatical typology, by demonstrating that the proposed semantic metalanguage is able to encompass and explicate a wide variety of grammaticalized meanings. Such a finding cuts across the commonly held view that, for the most part, grammatical semantics and lexical semantics call for rather different descriptive toolkits.

Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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