Here you will find various resources to help with NSM publications and presentations.

Tables of Semantic Primes

Here are a selection of Tables of Semantic Primes in various languages

  1. Arabic (DOCX 21k) (Habib 2023, c.f. Habib 2011)
  2. Amharic (PDF 407k) (Amberber 2016 c.f. Amberber 2008)
  3. Cantonese (DOC 18k) (Leung 2015)
  4. Cèmuhi (DOCX 20k) (Lecompte-Van Poucke 2016)
  5. Czech (DOCX 17k) (Pavlásková 2022)
  6. Danish (DOCX 22k) (Levisen 2012; 2015)
  7. Dutch (DOCX 17k) (Peeters 2020)
  8. English (DOC 109k) (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2014)
  9. Ewe (DOCX 19k) (Ameka & Thompson 2017 c.f. Ameka 1994)
  10. Farsi (PDF 243k) (Arab 2016)
  11. Finnish (DOC 120k) (after Vanhatalo, Tissari, Idström 2014)
  12. French (DOCX 21k) (Peeters 2015)
  13. German (DOC 109k)
  14. Hebrew (DOCX 20k) (Habib 2023, c.f. Habib 2011)
  15. Italian (DOCX 21k) (Farese 2017)
  16. Japanese (DOCX 24k) (Asano-Cavanagh & Farese 2015)
  17. Kigiriyama (DOCX 23k) (Krijtenburg & de Volder 2015)
  18. Korean (DOCX 24k) (Yoon 2015 c.f. Yoon 2008)
  19. Longgu (DOCX 20k) (Hill 2017)
  20. Mandarin Chinese (DOCX 22k) (Wong & Ye 2016 after Chappell 2002)
  21. Polish (DOC 118k) (Wierzbicka 2015)
  22. Russian (DOCX 17k) (Gladkova 2017)
  23. Serbian (DOCX 32k) 2015
  24. Spanish (DOC 110k) (after Travis 2002)
  25. Trini (DOCX 25k) (Levisen & Jogie 2015)
  26. Vietnamese (DOC 112k) (Vo 2015)
  27. Wolof (DOCX 20k) (Bondéelle 2015)

The following document is useful if you wish to create a table of semantic primes in another language.

 

Chart of NSM Semantic Primes

It is highly recommended that you print these documents on A3 paper.

English

This is a revised and updated version of a Chart first published in 2010. It displays English versions of semantic primes and some of their combinatorial possibilities.

Chart of NSM Semantic Primes (PDF) (v20 May 2022)

Condensed version (PDF) (this is a version of the chart layout designed for publication e.g. in books where the page size does not allow for the A3 version)

French

Italian

Czech

Diagram Sémantických Prvků PSM (PDF)

Czech chart release notes (PDF) (Pavlaskova 2022)

Danish

Det Naturlige Semantiske Metasprog (PDF)

 

Diagrams of Semantic Primes

These diagrams are organised slightly differently to the charts and the tables, and are primarily designed for use in presentations and teaching. Each image is a PNG file 3720 x 2510 pixels, with 300dpi resolution. They are available under CC-BY-SA 4.0 licensing. For a version in an additional language, please contact Lauren.

Arabic: Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

Czech:  Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

Danish: Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

English: Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

Finnish: Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

French: Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

Hebrew: Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

Spanish: Colour (PNG), Greyscale (PNG)

 

List of 150 NSM Sentences for identifying primes

This is an updated version of a list published in 2014 in the journal Studies in Language.

150 Sentences (v7 April 2022, DOCX)