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(2015) German – ORDNUNG

Cramer, Rahel (2015). German Ordnung: A semantic and ethnopragmatic analysis of a core cultural value. International Journal of Language and Culture, 2(2), 269-293. DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.2.2.06cra

This study aims to illustrate the intricate connections that exist between features of a certain language and underlying culture-specific conceptualizations. The analysis sheds new light on a German cultural core value, namely, Ordnung ‘order’, its relationship to other cultural themes, and the influence it exerts on German interpersonal style. To allow for a better understanding of the German core value Ordnung ‘order’ as it relates to other German cultural themes, the study first provides an analysis of the common expressions alles (ist) in Ordnung ‘everything [is] in order’ and Ordnung muss sein ‘there has to be order’. This will be followed by an analysis of the social descriptor term locker ‘loose’. The paper seeks to illustrate the merits of a perspective in language and culture studies that is truly culture-internal and can thus facilitate cross-cultural understanding, and it does so by applying the principles of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach
to semantic and ethnopragmatic description.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1980) English – GET (passive)

Chappell, Hilary (1980). Is the get-passive adversative? Papers in Linguistics, 13(3), 411-452. DOI: 10.1075/sl.l0.2.02cha

A new analysis of the get-passive is advocated, based on the belief that the study of semantics is fundamental and prior to the study of syntax. The initial assumption leads to the postulation of a discrete number of intuitively verifiable interpretations of the get-passive construction in the main section of the article. Natural language is used as the semantic metalanguage in the analysis of the passive. Each interpretation is subsequently reduced into less complex but more readily comprehensible units.

The article begins with an outline of earlier attitudes towards the use of get, followed by a brief description of several different kinds of passive constructions in other languages. An appraisal of two comparatively recent articles that specifically deal with the get-passive precedes the presentation of the semantic analysis.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1986) Chinese (Mandarin) – Passive of bodily effect

Chappell, Hilary (1986). The passive of bodily effect in Chinese. Studies in Language, 10(2), 271-296. DOI: 10.1075/sl.l0.2.02cha

In standard Chinese (pŭtōnghuà), besides the regular passive form NP (undergoer) – BEI – NP (agent) – VP, there is a second syntactically related passive with a complex predicate containing a postverbal or ‘retained object’ : NP (undergoer) – BEI – NP (agent) – V – LE – N (part of the body).

This second construction serves as the topic of discussion of this paper. It is shown to be restricted to expressing an inalienable relationship between a person and a part of the body, other relational nouns such as kinship or material possessions being excluded from postverbal position.

It is argued that the postverbal NP is not a case of a ‘retained object’ in Jespersen’s sense as the body part term neither acts as the true semantic undergoer nor can be considered as a kind of second object. This argument is supported by the additional evidence of the postverbal NP not permitting any modification by adjectives or demonstratives.

The interpretation of lasting effect on the undergoer (the affected person) resulting from an adversative passive event is claimed to be a main
semantic constraint of this construction.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1986) Chinese (Mandarin) – Adversity passives

Chappell, Hilary (1986). Formal and colloquial adversity passives in Standard Chinese. Linguistics, 24(6), 1025-1052. DOI: 10.1515/ling.1986.24.6.1025

A semantic analysis of the polysemy of analytic passive constructions in standard Chinese (Mandarin) that belong to both formal and colloquial levels of language is undertaken here. The three passive constructions in question all have the basic syntactic form of NP(undergoer)-BEI/RANG/JIAO-NP(agent)-VP.

The view of the formal bèi passive as an adversity passive in its continuing traditional usage in the spoken language is upheld and supported principally by the evidence of the semantic analysis. Its treatment as a polysemous structure results in division into two main types — the formal bei passive and the bèi passive of ‘translatese’ in written language. For the second type, it will be shown that the influence of European languages in translation has led to the loss of the adversity feature, the requirement of an overt agent, and a perfective predicate.

Finally, an argument in favour of considering the colloquial adversity passives formed by ràng and jiào to contain certain semantic features,
distinct both from one another and from the bèi passive, is presented. It is contended that ràng forms passives of ‘avoidable’ events whereas jiào forms passives expressing the unexpected nature of the event. Both contrast to bèi, where the serious nature of the adversity is encoded.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

 

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(1991) Chinese (Mandarin) – ME

Chappell, Hilary (1991). Strategies for the assertion of obviousness and disagreement in Mandarin Chinese: A semantic study of the modal particle me. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 11(1), 39-65. DOI: 10.1080/07268609108599451

This paper sets out to provide a semantic analysis of a little-researched modal particle in Mandarin Chinese – me, which occurs structurally in utterance-final position and belongs to a set of discourse markers facilitating both conversational interaction and the expression of a variety of different attitudes on the part of the speaker. The attitudinal value of these markers involves the coding of emotions as varied as surprise, exasperation, indignation and impatience. We provide a semantic analysis of the two distinct but related uses of me in utterance-final position. The two uses distinguished are shown to belong to different contexts and with different pragmatic purposes for the speaker.

The first use does not contain any component of feeling or emotion, but merely asserts a causal link between two propositions to the effect that one was the obvious consequence of the other. This is the modal particle me of an obvious logical connection found in explanatory contexts.

By contrast, the second use of me is shown to have the possibility of expressing a negative emotion such as indignation or impatience which is caused by what the speaker views to be a false opinion or misconception on the part of the addressee or a third party not present. The “true” nature of the matter is asserted by the speaker as self-evident through the use of me. This is the modal particle me of disagreement found in contexts where, for example, speaker and addressee hold opposite views.

It is furthermore shown that the effect of genre on the use of the modal marker me is relevant. The particle me proves to be much less frequent in narrative texts than in conversational ones, a consequence of diminished interaction between speaker and addressee in the narrative form, also affected by the more formal context of one of the narrative corpora. Finally, diachronic considerations are briefly outlined, and the semantic relationship of the interrogative to rhetorical questions and markers of modality such as me is described.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1994) Chinese (Mandarin) – NSM primes

Chappell, Hilary (1994). Mandarin semantic primitives. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 109-147). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.25.09cha

The approach taken in this analysis of Mandarin is that only a small subset of lexemes and expressions of a natural spoken language serves as a potential ‘key’ or metalanguage in directly representing basic conceptual building blocks, a framework of semantic analysis advocated and developed by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard. In the main section of the paper, the eight classes of primitives proposed by Goddard and Wierzbicka are discussed in turn for Mandarin: (1) substantives and pronouns; (2) mental predicates; (3) determiners and quantifiers; (4) actions and events; (5) metapredicates; (6) time and place; (7) meronymy and taxonomy; and (8) evaluators and descriptors. Most of the data are elicited for the purpose of creating the set of test sentences with the primitives in their canonical contexts in order to provide a comparative corpus. Where possible, I have supplemented this with data from transcriptions of recorded conversations and narratives to add utterances from natural contexts.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2002) Chinese (Mandarin) – NSM primes, NSM syntax

Chappell, Hilary (2002). The universal syntax of semantic primes in Mandarin Chinese. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Meaning and universal grammar: Theory and empirical findings. Vol. I (pp. 243-322). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.60.12cha

The present chapter represents an enlargement in scope over Chappell (1994), which was mainly restricted to identifying Mandarin exponents of semantic primes, 39 in number at that time. In the present study, the primary focus is the syntax of the proposed primes in Mandarin. I examine the syntactic frames of each prime to test the claims made by Goddard and Wierzbicka with respect to the universal syntax of semantic primes. Since the number of primes has increased to 59 in the intervening period, some space has been allocated to justifying the selection of the particular lexemes or expressions for the newly proposed primes, and for cases where I have revised my earlier analysis.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) English, Turkish – Speech acts

Can, Hümeyra (2011). A cross-cultural study of the speech act of congratulation in British English and Turkish using a corpus approach. MA thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

PDF: Open access

Abstract:

This study aims to find out the culturally different conceptualizations of congratulation in British culture and tebrik and kutlama in Turkish culture using a corpus approach and to formulate cultural scripts for these three performative verbs using the NSM approach. More specifically, the study aims to reveal the contexts where the target speech act is used and to uncover the kinds of strategies/components employed in these situations.

To be able to collect the targeted data, the study begins with the monolingual and bilingual dictionary definitions of the performative verbs (i.e., congratulate, tebrik etmek and kutlamak) and then follows a corpus approach whereby the performative verbs and their various lexical forms are searched for in various corpora (i.e., BYU-BNC, MTC, Google). In total, 47 dictionaries are looked up and 442 contexts of congratulation, 339 contexts of tebrik and 348 contexts of kutlama are collected from the newspaper and blog genres in the three corpora. The analyses of the data aim to uncover the qualitative and quantitative features of congratulation, tebrik and kutlama in British and Turkish cultures.

The results of the study show that there are some cultural differences as well as similarities in the conceptualization of the speech act of congratulation in terms of its contexts of use and strategies. The findings also demonstrate the usefulness of the corpus approach in studying speech acts and their conceptualization.


Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(1993) French – Speech act verbs

Monville-Burston, Monique (1993). Les verba dicendi dans la presse d’information [Verba dicendi in the information press]. Langue française, 98, 48-66. DOI: 10.3406/lfr.1993.5833. PDF (open access)

Written in French.

Following the example set by A. Wierzbicka’s English speech act verbs: A semantic dictionary (1988), the author explores on a more modest scale the area of French speech act verbs. Having identified, within a corpus of texts belonging to the newspaper press, the ten most frequent « verba dicendi », she sets out to provide a precise and rigorous definition for each, and she deals with the various constraints which rule their use by journalists.

(2006) French – CERTES

Burston, Monique (2006). The French connector certes: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage interpretation. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 289-305). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.18bur

This paper looks at the meaning and use of the French discourse marker certes in sequences involving an assertive-concessive adverb certes (equivalent to English certainly, admittedly, granted, of course etc.) followed by an apodosis starting with mais (‘but’) or an equivalent adversative expression (as in une faute certes, mais qui est pardonnable ‘a mistake, admittedly, but a forgivable one’). An explication in Natural Semantic Metalanguage shows that certes is at the heart of a “diaphonic” situation: a duality of voices can be heard in the text, of which the second reinterprets, reformulates and integrates the first. The explication also accounts for the fact that certes critically contributes to text coherence, by creating a thematic-rhematic structure.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) NSM and lexicography

Bullock, David (2011). NSM + LDOCE: A non-circular dictionary of English. International Journal of Lexicography, 24(2), 226-240.

DOI: 10.1093/ijl/ecq035

Abstract:

This paper describes an approach used to test the expressive power of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and its tiny set of semantic primes. A small dictionary was created, using NSM to paraphrase definitions for each word in the controlled defining vocabulary of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE). Student participants performed several headword-identification tasks to evaluate the quality of these definitions. The resulting 2000-word dictionary is non-circular, and by extension provides non-circular definitions for all the words in the LDOCE.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2002) Spanish – Address forms

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2002). Un intento de aplicación del metalenguaje semántico natural a las fórmulas de tratamiento españolas [An attempt at applying Natural Semantic Metalanguage to Spanish address forms]. Estudios hispánicos, 10, 61-68.

Written in Spanish.

A lot has been written on address forms from a pragmatic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspective. This short study is an attempt at providing a semantic analysis of some of the factors that impact on the use of nominal address forms in Spanish. Semantic components, expressed in a Spanish-based NSM, are provided, but focus on what is conveyed by the address forms – cordiality, spontaneity, emotionality, irony, machismo, etc. – as opposed to what specific address forms stand for.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2005) Portuguese – Emotions

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2005). Saudade, czyli portugalska tęsknota za czymś, co być mogło, a nie było [Saudade, or Portuguese longing for something that could be, and was not]. In Anna Duszak & Nina Pawlak (Eds.), Anatomia szczęścia: Emocje pozytywne w językach i kulturach świata (pp. 115-123). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.

Abstract:

The article contains an analysis of the meaning of the Portuguese word saudade, usually translated as Polish tęsknota, melancholia, nostalgia, English longing or yearning, German Sehnsucht, Spanish añoranza. Saudade describes a typical state of mind for the Portuguese, which they claim is untranslatable in other languages. This feeling, although it tends to be included among feelings of sadness, is indispensable to happiness for the Portuguese. If someone feels saudade, it means that they have found something good in their life, something they miss and would like to experience some more of. The component ‘I feel something good’ is very important for this concept. Saudade is also one of the main themes of Portuguese songs. The article investigates the word in various contexts of use and formulates a semantic explication expressed in Natural Semantic Metalanguage.

More information:

Written in Polish.

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Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2008) Portuguese – Key words in Lisbon ‘fado’ songs

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2008). Fado – podejście semantyczne: Próba interpretacji słów kluczy [Fado – a semantic approach: An attempt at interpreting key words]. Wroclaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT.

Written in Polish.

This book interprets a dozen Portuguese-based lexical units, mainly from the domain of emotion, selected through a frequency-based survey of Lisbon fado songs. It is the published version of the author’s PhD thesis, University of Wrocław (2007).


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

(2009) Portuguese – PAIXÃO

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2009). How to use both the NSM and CL approaches to meaning – Portuguese lexeme paixão ‘passion’. Studia Linguistica, 28, 31-41. PDF (open access)

The aim of this paper is to show that the NSM approach to meaning can be used together with some methodological tools elaborated within Cognitive Linguistics. By combining NSM explications, based on reductive paraphrase, with prototype semantics, stating that meaning of a lexeme has a centric structure (with some senses more salient than others) we are able to refer more accurately to the peripheral senses of a given word. The radial network diagram makes it possible to isolate precisely the lexical unit we are interested in and describe it in terms of semantic primes.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2010) Portuguese – Emotions

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2010). Przydatnosc eksplikacji metajezykowych w tworzeniu definicji leksykograficznych (na przykladzie definicji nazw uczuc w jezyku portugalskim) [On the usefulness of metalanguage explications for the creation of lexicographical definitions (exemplified through the definition of nouns of emotions in Portuguese)]. In Wojciech Chlebda (Ed.), Etnolingwistyka a leksykografia: Tom poswiecony Profesorowi Jerzemu Bartminskiemu (pp. 93-102). Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego.

Written in Polish.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2011) Spanish – DOLOR

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2011). El dolor y el tango [Pain and tango]. Estudios hispánicos, 19, 27-37. PDF (open access)

Written in Spanish.

The present paper is dedicated to the analysis of the Spanish word dolor (‘pain’) on the basis of a corpus consisting of 100 tango lyrics. I describe the linguistic picture of dolor in tangos, demonstrating its cultural specificity. To describe its lexical and cultural meaning without an ethnocentric bias I rely on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012) Spanish – DOLOR

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). Spanish pain, el dolor. In Zdzislaw Wasik, & Piotr P. Chruszczewski (Eds.), Languages in contact 2011 (pp. 61-71). Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo WSF.

The present paper is dedicated to the analysis of the Spanish word dolor ‘pain’; my aim is to demonstrate its cultural specificity and uniqueness. On the basis of lexical and textual data I explicate what the meaning of dolor is, and why I consider it very different from pain, its English counterpart. To free my considerations from an ethnocentric bias, I rely on NSM or Natural Semantic Metalanguage.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012) Portuguese – Emotions

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). Saudade: A key Portuguese emotion. Emotion Review, 4(2). 203-211.

DOI: 10.1177/1754073911430727

Abstract:

This paper analyses the meaning of the Portuguese emotion word saudade, roughly translatable as ‘nostalgia’, in an attempt to show its cultural significance and contradict the view that nostalgia is a marginal feeling, deprived of any practical function. Saudade is not a marginal feeling in Portuguese culture, but an important and basic emotion term going hand in hand with amor ‘love’. Saudade may be viewed as a typically prototypical category, because it covers the whole scale of feelings, from sadness to happiness. The Portuguese claim it has no equivalents in any other language in the world and regard it as a fundamental and distinctive feature of their national identity. Its main characteristic lies in its ambivalence — saudade is both a memory and a feeling; it is both pleasure and pain.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1989) Mangap-Mbula – Modality

Bugenhagen, Robert D. (1989). Modality in Mangap-Mbula: An exploration of its syntax and semantics. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 20(1/2), 9-39.

In this paper I describe the encoding of modality in the Austronesian language Mangap-Mbula. Rather than relying upon the somewhat vague notion of “irrealis”, I propose an analysis in terms of three independent parameters – presupposition versus assertion, epistemic certainty/commitment, and factuality – and characterize these parameters using a more controlled semantic metalanguage. The latter parameter is somewhat deictic in nature, encoding a proposition which has been true at a specific time prior to the time of utterance or some other deictic center.