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(2009) West-African languages – Access rituals

Ameka, Felix K. (2009). Access rituals in West African communities: An ethnopragmatic perspective. In Gunther Senft, & Ellen B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 127-151). New York: Berg.

This chapter outlines different types of encounters that may occur between interlocutors in West Africa. Next, a particular type of encounter – a social visit – is described, its constitutive factors are drawn out and the linguistic routines that may be used in such situations are elucidated. A variety of conventional opening acts for negotiating interaction are studied next, and it is argued that “greetings” are but a subcomponent of openings. It is claimed that the enactment of well-being inquiries is an avenue for displaying cultural values such as inclusiveness and harmony in West African communities, and it is shown that expectations about the questions vary cross-culturally. Finally, attention is paid to changes due to cultural contact in the norms associated with greeting behavior in West Africa. The paper concludes with some reflections on the relationship between access routines and ritual communication.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

 

(2015) Ewe, Likpe – Temperature expressions

Ameka, Felix K. (2015). “Hard sun, hot weather, skin pain”: The cultural semantics of temperature expressions in Ewe and Likpe (West Africa). In Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (Ed.), The linguistics of temperature (pp. 43-72). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1515/9783110880168.35

Temperature is talked about in different ways across languages. In this paper, I explore the linguistic expressions used to talk about temperature focussing on three domains of experience in two languages in an asymmetric contact relation, Ewe and Likpe, both Kwa (Niger-Congo) languages of West Africa. Likpe speakers are bilingual in Ewe but not vice versa. The empirical question addressed is: how do speakers of Ewe and Likpe talk about the hotness and coldness of (i) things such as food and water; (ii) places and the ambience; and (iii) the personal experience of hotness and coldness in one’s body. I will argue that both languages do not have equivalents for ‘temperature’. Secondly I will show that “temperature property”, being a physical quality, is basically expressed using verbs and verb phrases (less so by nouns and ideophones) consistent with their typological profile. Moreover I argue that the range of expressions available in the two languages for talking about ‘water’ is more elaborate than the other domains of experience, some of which are linked to cultural practices such as bathing. I also investigate the construal of ‘hotness’ in Ewe and propose semantic descriptions of the predicates involved representing them in Natural Semantic Metalanguage-style explications. While some of the expressions for ‘hotness’ can be accounted for through a link to ‘fire’, as has been previously suggested, I argue that we need another prototype anchor for other expressions of ‘hotness’, namely, ‘pain’. In the ambient domain, the experience of the temperature generated by the sun itself is talked about using predicates from the domain of the physical property of texture. The conceptual motivations for such usage are also explored.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2017) Ewe – Auto-antonyms

Ameka, Felix K. (2017). Meaning between algebra and culture: Auto-antonyms in the Ewe verb lexicon. In Hilke Reckman, Lisa L.S. Cheng, Maarten Hijzelendoorn, & Rint Sybesma (Eds.), Crossroads semantics: Computation, experiment and grammar (pp. 227-248). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.210.14ame

Are meanings about “things in the world” or “things in the mind”? Are they about algebraic calculations or about cultural conceptions? How are multiple senses of a word related? Questions like these continue to be debated by semanticists and are explored in this chapter through a detailed semantic analysis of two verbs in Ewe (Gbe), a Kwa language of West Africa. The two verbs are mie ‘germinate/dry up’ and dró ‘put load up on/down from head’. It is argued that the individual senses of each verb involve directional opposition and that, as such, the verbs are auto-antonyms. From a logical point of view, the interpretations of the verb mie may not look antonymous; however, from the perspective of cultural practices and conceptualizations, the image-schematic representations go in opposite directions. NSM-inspired semantic representations are adopted to show the contrasts in a transparent manner.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2001) Amharic – Emotions

Amberber, Mengistu (2001). Testing emotional universals in Amharic. In Jean Harkins & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 39-72). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168.35

In her 1999 book Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals, Wierzbicka proposes the following set of working hypotheses:

a. All languages have a word for FEEL.
b. In all languages, feelings can be described as “good” or “bad”.
c. All languages have “emotive” interjections (i.e. interjections expressing cognitively-based feelings).
d. All languages have some “emotion terms” (i.e. terms for cognitively-based feelings).
e. All languages have words overlapping (though not identical) in meaning with the English words ‘angry’, ‘afraid’, and ‘ashamed’.
f. All languages have words comparable (though not necessarily identical) in meaning to ‘cry’ and ‘smile’.
g. In all languages, people can describe cognitively-based feelings via observable bodily symptoms.
h. In all languages, cognitively-based feelings can be described via bodily sensations.
i. In all languages, cognitively-based feelings can be described via figurative “bodily images”.
j. In all languages, there are alternative grammatical constructions for describing (and interpreting) cognitively-based feelings.

The main purpose of the present study is to test the above set of hypotheses in Amharic. The description and analysis presented in the study shows that emotional universals are borne out by the Amharic data. Explications are proposed for words that roughly correspond to the English phrases be happy/be joyful, be sad/be disappointed, be angry at someone/rebuke/reprimand, be ashamed/be embarrassed/be shy, his face became ashen (with fright), I felt sorry.


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

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(2003) Amharic – NSM primes

Amberber, Mengistu (2003). The grammatical encoding of “thinking” in Amharic. Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2/3), 195-219.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.00

Abstract:

The lexical exponents of the conceptual primitives THINK and KNOW in Amharic are assəbə and awwək’ə respectively. The article investigates issues of polysemy involving the two mental predicates and explores their lexical elaboration and morphosyntactic realization. The article also briefly examines constructions based on verbs equivalent to the English term understand.

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

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(2008) Amharic – NSM primes

Amberber, Mengistu (2008). Semantic primes in Amharic. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 83-119). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.102.09amb

Abstract:

This study explores the lexical exponents of the full set of NSM primes in Amharic. It is shown that the identification of the Amharic exponents of the semantic primes is straightforward and the syntactic properties of the primes do not present any particular difficulties. Nevertheless, there are some proposed exponents whose status requires further investigation. For instance, the prime MORE seems to have two lexical exponents, one of which is employed in nominal comparative contexts. There are also some exponents whose polysemous meanings must be clearly distinguished on formal grounds. Overall, the chapter attempts to provide a broad overview of the universal and language-specific combinatorial properties of semantic primes in Amharic.

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

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(2010) Arabic – Emotions (shame)

Al Jallad, Nader (2010). The concept of “shame” in Arabic: Bilingual dictionaries and the challenge of defining culture-based emotions. Language Design, 12, 31-57. PDF (open access)

This paper aims at providing a theoretical framework for analysing, understanding, and describing the very complex emotion of ‘shame’ in Arabic. The complexity of this emotion is highlighted by problems of translatability, as shown by a survey of how Arabic ‘shame’ words are defined in four English-Arabic and Arabic-English bilingual dictionaries. The comparison of the various definitions highlights the need to define not only the emotion of ‘shame’, but also all other emotions and culture-loaded words in general, by means of universal language- and culture-free formulas. To test the proposed theoretical framework, a Natural Semantic Metalanguage-based system is used to define the ‘shame’ words addressed in this paper.


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

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(2012) Translatability

Afrashi, Azita & Taheri Ardali, Mortaza (2012). A look at universal concepts and the possibility of translatability. Translation Studies Quarterly [http://journal.translationstudies.ir], 10(37), 73-85.

Abstract:

After introducing the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach, the authors investigate the use of this approach in translation theory, focusing on the possibility of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic translatability. They conclude that universal human concepts ensure translatability of our thoughts from one language into another since they constitute a basis for genuine human understanding.

More information:

Written in Persian.

This paper contains explications of the Persian words شرم sharm ‘shame’, قهر qahr ‘not on speaking terms’, and غیرت qeyrat ‘zeal in defense of honour‘. It also proposes a shorter explication of the Polish verb tęsknić ‘feel the pain of distance’ than the one in Goddard’s Semantic Analysis (2nd edition, 2011).

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

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(2016) Ladino – KURTIJO

August-Zarębska, Agnieszka, & Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2016). Recalling the past: The linguistic and cultural images of kurtijo, Sephardic courtyard. Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 25(1), 96-117.

DOI: 10.3167/ajec.2016.250107

Abstract:

The present article investigates the concept of kurtijo, roughly ‘courtyard’, ‘home’, in Ladino (also known as Judeo-Spanish, Djudezmo or Sephardi), the language of Sephardic Jews, currently under threat of extinction. It argues that, after the Holocaust, kurtijo became a culturally salient word and may be regarded as a cultural key word in Ladino. Dictionaries and texts of contemporary Ladino poets are used as the main source of data. The meaning of kurtijo is expressed in the form of an NSM explication.

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(2012) Portuguese – CASA

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). O conceito de ‘casa’ em português europeu [The concept of ‘home’ in European Portuguese]. In Petar Petrov, Pedro Quintion de Sousa, Roberto López-Iglésias Samartim, & Elias J.Torres Feijó (Eds.), Avanços em ciências da linguagem (pp. 343-357). Faro: Através.

Written in Portuguese.

This introductory analysis of the lexico-cultural meaning of the word casa in European Portuguese shows in the main that ‘casa’ is an essential value in Portugal. Casa is an important reference point, a place where one stays for a short time or a long time, but always a place to go back to. Casa is linked to family, thought of not just as a group of people who live together, but rather as a network of multi-generational relations and obligations. Casa is more than just a place in physical space, it is also a metaphorical place in the heart, a place that inspires beautiful emotions, necessary for humans to live well.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2008) Portuguese – AMOR

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2008). Amor em português [Love in Portuguese]. In Anna Kalewska (Ed.), Diálogos com a Lusofonia: Colóquio comemorativo dos 30 anos da secção Portuguesa do Instituto de Estudos Ibéricos e Ibero-americanos da Universidade de Varsóvia (pp. 408-420). Warszawa: Universidade de Varsóvia, Instytut Studiów Iberoamerykanskich UW. PDF (pre-publication version with different page numbering)

Written in Portuguese.

Every culture has its own ways of speaking, thinking, acting and even feeling, which are reflected in language. In this paper, I analyse a lexical meaning of one Portuguese word, amor. Having as a base a corpus consisting of Lisbon fado songs, I try to look for a semantic invariant of the word amor in fado and to define it in terms of a Portuguese-based NSM.


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

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