Wierzbicka, Anna (1987). Boys will be boys: ‘Radical semantics’ vs. ‘radical pragmatics’. Language, 63(1), 95-114.
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 10 (pp. 391-452) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1991, 2003). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Colloquial ‘tautologies’ such as War is war or A promise is a promise have often been adduced in support of a ‘Gricean’ account of language use. The present article shows, however, that ‘tautological constructions’ are partly conventional and language-specific, and that each such construction has a specific meaning which cannot be fully predicted in terms of any universal pragmatic maxims. It is argued that the attitudinal meanings conveyed by various tautological constructions and by similar linguistic devices should be stated in rigorous and yet self-explanatory semantic formulae. ‘Radical pragmatics’ is rejected as a blind alley, and an integrated approach to language structure and language use is proposed, based on a coherent semantic theory which is capable of representing ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ aspects of meaning in a unified framework.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1987). English speech act verbs: A semantic dictionary. Sydney: Academic Press.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) absolve, (E) abuse, (E) accept, (E) accuse, (E) acknowledge, (E) acquit, (E) add, (E) admit, (E) admonish, (E) advise, (E) advocate, (E) affirm, (E) agree, (E) allow, (E) announce, (E) answer, (E) apologize, (E) appeal, (E) apply, (E) appoint, (E) approve, (E) argue, (E) ask, (E) assert, (E) assure, (E) attack, (E) authorize, (E) baptize, (E) bargain, (E) beg, (E) bemoan, (E) beseech, (E) bet, (E) bewail, (E) blackmail, (E) blame, (E) blaspheme, (E) bless, (E) boast, (E) book, (E) calculate, (E) call, (E) call for, (E) call on, (E) cancel, (E) challenge, (E) charge, (E) chat, (E) christen, (E) claim, (E) command, (E) comment, (E) compare, (E) complain, (E) compliment, (E) concede, (E) conclude, (E) condemn, (E) confess, (E) confide, (E) confirm, (E) congratulate, (E) conjecture, (E) consent, (E) consult, (E) content, (E) contradict, (E) converse, (E) convict, (E) convince, (E) counsel, (E) count, (E) counter, (E) credit, (E) criticize, (E) curse, (E) dare, (E) debate, (E) decide, (E) declare, (E) decline, (E) decree, (E) deduce, (E) defend, (E) defy, (E) demand, (E) denounce, (E) deny, (E) deplore, (E) describe, (E) direct, (E) disagree, (E) disapprove, (E) discuss, (E) dismiss, (E) dispute, (E) dissuade, (E) emphasize, (E) enquire, (E) enthuse, (E) estimate, (E) exclaim, (E) excommunicate, (E) excuse, (E) explain, (E) exult, (E) farewell, (E) forbid, (E) forecast, (E) forgive, (E) gather, (E) give, (E) gossip, (E) grant, (E) greet, (E) guarantee, (E) guess, (E) hint, (E) implore, (E) imply, (E) infer, (E) inform, (E) inform on, (E) inquire, (E) insinuate, (E) insist, (E) instruct, (E) insult, (E) intercede, (E) interrogate, (E) introduce, (E) invite, (E) joke, (E) justify, (E) lament, (E) lecture, (E) maintain, (E) moan, (E) mock, (E) nag, (E) name, (E) narrate, (E) negotiate, (E) note, (E) notify, (E) object, (E) observe, (E) offer, (E) order, (E) pardon, (E) permit, (E) persuade, (E) plead, (E) pledge, (E) point out, (E) praise, (E) predict, (E) prescribe, (E) presume, (E) proclaim, (E) profess, (E) prohibit, (E) promise, (E) pronounce, (E) prophesy, (E) propose, (E) protest, (E) prove, (E) quarrel, (E) query, (E) question, (E) reassure, (E) rebuff, (E) rebuke, (E) recant, (E) recapitulate, (E) reckon, (E) recommend, (E) recount, (E) refuse, (E) refute, (E) reject, (E) relate, (E) remark, (E) remind, (E) renounce, (E) repeat, (E) reply, (E) report, (E) reprimand, (E) reproach, (E) reprove, (E) request, (E) require, (E) reserve, (E) resign, (E) resolve, (E) retort, (E) reveal, (E) ridicule, (E) say goodbye, (E) scold, (E) sentence, (E) speculate, (E) state, (E) stress, (E) suggest, (E) sum up, (E) summarize, (E) summon, (E) suppose, (E) suspect, (E) swear, (E) talk, (E) tell, (E) testify, (E) thank, (E) threaten, (E) urge, (E) veto, (E) volunteer, (E) vote, (E) vouch for, (E) vow, (E) warn, (E) welcome, (E) wish, (E) wonder
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). Review of Nessa Wolfson and Joan Manes (Eds.), Language of inequality. Language in Society, 17, 99-146.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). Emotions across culture: Similarities and differences. American Anthropologist, 90(4), 982-983. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1988.90.4.02a00260
A reply to Konstantin Kolenda’s rejoinder to the 1986 AA paper on human emotions (vol. 88, pp. 584-594). No abstract available.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). Review of Jef Verschueren, What people say they do with words. Language in Society, 17, 108-113. DOI: 10.1017/s004740450001263x
Includes some self-criticism of explications proposed in the earlier days (e.g. Semantic primitives, 1972).
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). Semantic primitives: A rejoinder to Murray and Button. American Anthropologist, 90, 686-689. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1988.90.3.02a00140
No abstract available.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). The semantics and lexicography of ‘natural kinds’. In Karl Hyldgaard-Jensen, & Arne Zettersten (Eds.), Symposium on Lexicography III (pp. 155-182). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
Abstract:
The views advanced in the present paper can be summarized as follows:
- The names of animals (and of other ‘natural kinds’) can, and should, be defined.
- In defining such words (as any other words), scientific knowledge should be distinguished from meaning; the place for scientific knowledge is in an encyclopedia, the place for meaning is in a dictionary.
- In defining words for animals, the lexicographer should aim at capturing the ‘folk concept’. This means that the cultural stereotypes are just as important for a good definition as ‘objective’ information concerning the appearance or behaviour of the animal in question.
- Definitions should be couched in simple and generally understandable terms. The defining vocabulary should be very restricted and should be standardized; it should also be maximally culture-free and based, as far as possible, on lexical universals.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) cat, (E) tiger
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). *Boys will be boys: A rejoinder to Bruce Fraser. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 221-224.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). The semantics of grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.18
Abstract:
This book presents a radically semantic approach to syntax and morphology. It offers a methodology that makes it possible to demonstrate, on an empirical basis, that syntax is neither autonomous nor arbitrary, but that it follows from semantics. It is shown that every grammatical construction encodes a certain semantic structure, which can be revealed and rigorously stated, so that the meanings encoded in grammar can be compared in a precise and illuminating way, within one language and across language boundaries. The author develops a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals or near-universals (and, ultimately, on a system of universal semantic primes) and shows that the same semantic metalanguage can be used for explicating lexical, grammatical and pragmatic aspects of language. She thus offers a method for an integrated linguistic description based on semantic foundations.
Analysing data from a number of different languages, the author also explores the notion of ethnosyntax and, via semantics, links syntax and morphology with culture. She demonstrates that the use of a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals makes it possible to rephrase the Humboldt-Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in such a way that it can be tested and treated as a program for empirical research.
Table of contents:
I. The semantics of syntax
1. The semantics of English complementation in a cross-linguistic perspective
2. Ethno-syntax and the philosophy of grammar
3. The semantics of causative constructions in a cross-linguistic perspective
4. The Japanese ‘adversative’ passive in a typological context (Are grammatical categories vague or multiply polysemous?)
5. Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat?
6. The semantics of ‘internal dative’ in English
II. The semantics of morphology
7. The meaning of a case: a study of the Polish dative
8. The semantics of case marking
9. What’s in a noun? (Or: How do nouns differ in meaning from adjectives?)
10. Oats and wheat: mass nouns, iconicity, and human categorization
More information:
Chapter 2 builds on: Ethno-syntax and the philosophy of grammar (1979)
Chapter 4 builds on: Are grammatical categories vague or polysemous? The Japanese ‘adversative’ passive in a typological context (1979)
Chapter 5 builds on: Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat? (1982)
Chapter 6 builds on: The semantics of ‘internal dative’ in English (1986)
Chapter 7 builds on: The meaning of a case: A study of the Polish dative (1986)
Chapter 8 builds on: The semantics of case marking (1983)
Chapter 9 builds on: What’s in a noun? (Or: How do nouns differ in meaning from adjectives?) (1986)
Chapter 10 builds on: Oats and wheat: The fallacy of arbitrariness (1985)
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags listed below are in addition to those listed at the end of the entries for the earlier work on which this book builds.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Russian personal names: The semantics of expressive derivation. Folia Slavica, 9, 314-354.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Semantic primitives – The expanding set. Quaderni di semantica, 10(2), 309-332.
Abstract:
The set of hypothetical semantic prim(itiv)es proposed in earlier works is shown to be in need of considerable expansion. This outcome is due primarily to the work of Cliff Goddard. The present paper surveys a set of 28 elements, including – in addition to survivals from earlier sets – several elements proposed by Goddard, and some by Andrzej Bogusławski.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) angry, (E) become, (E) go, (E) soul, (E) To'!, (E) tu, (E) who
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Prototypes in semantics and pragmatics: Explicating attitudinal meanings in terms of prototypes. Linguistics, 27(4), 731-769.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1989.27.4.731
Abstract:
This paper shows how pragmatic meanings encoded in different forms of address (such as titles, ‘polite’ pronouns, and personal names, including their expressive derivates) can be portrayed in a rigorous and illuminating way in NSM, and that such explications allow us to make the similarities and the differences between different pragmatic categories clear and explicit – both within a language and across language and culture boundaries.
It is argued that abstract features such as ‘solidarity’, ‘familiarity’, ‘(in)formality’, ‘distance’, ‘intimacy’, and so on do not provide adequate tools for the description and comparison of pragmatic meanings, because they are not self-explanatory and because they do not have any constant, language-independent value. (For example, the ‘distance’ implied by the English title Mr. is different from that implied by the French title Monsieur; and the ‘familiarity’ implied by Russian forms such as Misa or Vanja is quite different from that implied by English forms such as Mike or John.)
It is shown that many pragmatic meanings have a prototypical semantic structure: they present emotions and attitudes in terms of certain prototypical human relationships, rather than in terms of fully specified mental states and social relations. In particular, social and existential categories, such as children, women, and men, or people one knows well and people one does not know, provide important signposts in the universe of human relations encoded in language. The exact role such prototypes play in different pragmatic categories can be shown in a precise and illuminating way in verbal explications constructed in the proposed metalanguage.
Translations:
Into Polish:
Chapter 2 (pp. 49-81) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1999), Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
More information:
More recent publications building on this one are:
Chapters 7 and 8 (pp. 225-307, 309-325) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1992), Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) (personal names), (E) Father, (E) given names, (E) madame, (E) mademoiselle, (E) miss, (E) monsieur, (E) Mr, (E) Mrs, (E) Ms, (E) nicknames, (E) Pan, (E) Pani, (E) Professor, (E) red, (E) salty, (E) Sir, (E) uncle, (E) vous, (E) vy, (E) woman, (E) wy
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). *Baudouin de Courtenay and the theory of linguistic relativity. In Janusz Rieger, Mieczysław Szymczak, & Stanisław Urbańczyk (Eds.), Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay a lingwistyka światowa. Wroclaw: Ossolineum. 51-57.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Semantic primitives and lexical universals. Quaderni di semantica, 10(1), 103-121.
Abstract:
Language is a tool for expressing meanings. The meanings we express constitute complex and culture-specific configurations of a restricted number of elementary concepts – conceptual building blocks. To be able to decode meanings with precision, to state them, to compare them across language boundaries, to study their growing complexity in child language, and so on, we must know what these elementary units are. To discover them, we must proceed by trial and error. A revealing semantic description is impossible without a well justified set of semantic prim(itiv)es. But a set of well justified prim(itiv)es cannot be found by mere theorizing. It can only be found on the basis of large scale lexicographic research.
More information:
This paper is best read in conjunction with the companion paper published by the same author in the same journal (Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Semantic primitives – The expanding set. Quaderni di semantica, 10(2), 309-332).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) good, (E) hungry, (E) mother, (E) part
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Soul and mind: Linguistic evidence for ethnopsychology and cultural history. American Anthropologist, 91(1), 41-58.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1989.91.1.02a00030
Abstract:
The Russian word duša ‘soul’ has a much wider scope of use than the English word soul and embodies a different folk psychology (fully congruent with what has been described as the Russian “national character”). The English word mind stands for an Anglo-Saxon folk category that has been reified as an objective category of thought. The decline and fall of the concept soul and the ascendancy of mind in English are linked with changes in the cultural history and in the prevailing Western ethnophilosophy.
Translations:
Into Polish:
Chapter 14 (pp. 522-544) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1999), Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Chapter 1 (pp. 31-63) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1992), Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) duša душа, (E) mind, (E) soul
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). *Cross-cultural pragmatics and different cultural values. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 13(1), 43-76.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). The semantics of emotions: Fear and its relatives in English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 10(2), 359-375. DOI: 10.1080/07268609008599447
This paper demonstrates that emotion concepts – including the so-called basic ones, such as anger, sadness or fear – can be defined in terms of universal semantic primitives such as ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘do’, ‘happen’, ‘know’ and ‘want’, in terms of which all areas of meaning, in all languages, can be rigorously and revealingly portrayed.
The definitions proposed here differ in various respects from so-called ‘classical definitions’; in particular, they do not adhere to the Aristotelian model based on a ‘genus proximum’ and ‘differentia specifica’. Rather, they take the form of certain prototypical scripts or scenarios, formulated in terms of thoughts, ‘wants’ and feelings. These scripts, however, can be seen as formulas providing rigorous specifications of necessary and sufficient conditions, and they do not support the idea that emotion concepts are ‘fuzzy’. On the contrary, the small set of universal semantic primitives employed here allows us to show that even apparent synonyms such as afraid and scared embody different – and fully specifiable – conceptual structures, and to reveal the remarkable precision with which boundaries between concepts are drawn – even between those concepts which at first sight appear to be identical or only “stylistically” different. Upon closer investigation, human conceptualization of emotions reveals itself as a system of unconscious distinctions of incredible delicacy, subtlety, and precision.
See also: (E) afraid, (E) alarmed, (E) anger, (E) anguish, (E) anxiety, (E) apprehension, (E) concerned, (E) disappointed, (E) dread, (E) fear, (E) fright, (E) frightened, (E) horrified, (E) joy, (E) panic, (E) petrified, (E) relieved, (E) sad, (E) scared, (E) terrified, (E) worried
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). Duša (soul), toska (yearning), sud’ba (fate): Three key concepts in Russian language and Russian culture. In Zygmunt Saloni (Ed.), Metody formalne w opisie języków słowiańskich (pp. 13-32). Bialystok: Bialystok University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) duša душа, (E) sud'ba судьба, (E) toska тоска
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). *Emotivity in language structure. Semiotica, 80(1/2), 161-169.
Review of Bronislava Volek. Emotive signs in language and semantic functioning of derived nouns in Russian.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). ‘Prototypes save’: On the uses and abuses of the notion of ‘prototype’ in linguistics and related fields. In Savas L. Tsohatzidis (Ed.), Meanings and prototypes: Studies in linguistic categorization (pp. 347-367). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 4 (pp. 148-169) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The original paper has been anthologized as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). ‘Prototypes save’. In Bas Aarts, David Denison, Evelien Keizer, & Gergana Popova (Eds.), Fuzzy grammar: A reader (pp. 461-478). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The original Tsohatzidis collection was reissued in 2013 by Routledge.
Prototypes are ‘in’. After years of self-doubt and inferiority complexes, it may seem that semantics has found the key to unlock – at last – the mysteries of meaning. This key resides in the concept of prototype. The role that the concept of prototype plays in current semantics is analogous to that which the concept of Gricean maxims has played in generative grammar. James McCawley has identified this role with the excellent slogan: “Grice saves”. In grammar, if there is a conflict between postulated rules and the actual usage, Grice rescues the grammarian: the usage can now be accounted for in terms of Gricean maxims.
Similarly in semantics. For example, the actual usage of individual words is too messy, too unpredictable, to be accounted for by definitions. But fortunately, semanticists do not have to worry about it any longer: they can now deploy the notion of ‘prototype’. And just as the failure of grammatical rules to work can now be proclaimed as evidence of progress in linguistics (because we have discovered the all-explaining role of Gricean maxims in language), the failure of semantic formulae to work can also be proclaimed as evidence of progress in semantics. ‘Semantic formulae SHOULD NOT “work”’; that’s one thing that ‘prototypes’ have taught us.
This paper discusses two sets of examples. The first set illustrates the tendency to abuse the concept of prototype (the ‘prototypes save’ attitude); the second set of examples illustrates the usefulness of this concept when it is used as a specific analytical tool and not as a universal thought-saving device.
