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The natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) is a linguistic theory that reduces lexicons down to a set of
semantic primitives Semantic primes or semantic primitives are a set of semantic concepts that are argued to be innately understood by all people but impossible to express in simpler terms. They represent words or phrases that are learned through practice but cannot ...
. It is based on the conception of Polish professor
Andrzej Bogusławski Andrzej Stanisław Bogusławski (born 1 December 1931) is a Polish philologist, semanticist, semioticist and philosopher of language of international repute. Originally a specialist in Russian language, his interests broadened into the epistem ...
. The theory was formally developed by Anna Wierzbicka at
Warsaw University The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...
and later at the
Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
in the early 1970s, and
Cliff Goddard Cliff Goddard (born 5 December 1953 in Canberra) is a professor of linguistics at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He is, with Anna Wierzbicka, a leading proponent of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to linguistic analysis ...
at
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
's
Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian ...
.


Approach

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory attempts to reduce the semantics of all lexicons down to a restricted set of semantic primitives, or primes. Primes are universal in that they have the same translation in every language, and they are primitive in that they cannot be defined using other words. Primes are ordered together to form
explication Explication (german: Explikation) is the process of drawing out the meaning of something which is not clearly defined, so as to make explicit what is currently left implicit. The term ''explication'' is used in both analytic philosophy and litera ...
s, which are descriptions of semantic representations consisting solely of primes. Research in the NSM approach deals extensively with language and
cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
, and language and
culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
. Key areas of research include
lexical semantics Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics), as a subfield of linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings.Pustejovsky, J. (2005) Lexical Semantics: Overview' in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, second edition, Volumes 1-14Ta ...
, grammatical semantics,
phraseology In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units (often collectively referred to as ''phrasemes''), in which the component parts of the expression tak ...
and
pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
, as well as
cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communic ...
. Dozens of languages, including representatives of 16 language groups, have been studied using the NSM framework. They include
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
,
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
,
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
, French,
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
,
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
,
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
,
Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
,
Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...
,
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
,
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
, Ewe,
Wolof Wolof or Wollof may refer to: * Wolof people, an ethnic group found in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania * Wolof language, a language spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania * The Wolof or Jolof Empire, a medieval West African successor of the Mal ...
,
East Cree East Cree, also known as (Eastern) James Bay Cree, and East Main Cree, is a group of Cree dialects spoken in Quebec, Canada on the east coast of lower Hudson Bay and James Bay, and inland southeastward from James Bay. Cree is one of the most spok ...
, Koromu, at least 16
Australian languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, and a number of
creole languages A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. Wh ...
including
Trinidadian creole Trinidadian Creole is an English-Based creole language commonly spoken throughout the island of Trinidad in Trinidad and Tobago. It is distinct from Tobagonian Creole – particularly at the basilectal level – and from other Lesser Antillean ...
, Roper River Kriol,
Bislama Bislama (; ; also known by its earlier French name, ) is an English-based creole language and one of the official languages of Vanuatu. It is the first language of many of the "Urban ni-Vanuatu" (citizens who live in Port Vila and Luganville) ...
and
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
. Apart from the originators Anna Wierzbicka and
Cliff Goddard Cliff Goddard (born 5 December 1953 in Canberra) is a professor of linguistics at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He is, with Anna Wierzbicka, a leading proponent of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to linguistic analysis ...
, a number of other scholars have participated in NSM semantics, most notably Bert Peeters, Zhengdao Ye, Felix Ameka, Jean Harkins, Marie-Odile Junker, Anna Gladkova, Jock Wong, Carsten Levisen, Helen Bromhead,
Adrian Tien Adrian is a form of the Latin given name Adrianus or Hadrianus. Its ultimate origin is most likely via the former river Adria from the Venetic and Illyrian word ''adur'', meaning "sea" or "water". The Adria was until the 8th century BC the main ...
, Carol Priestley,
Yuko Asano-Cavanagh Yuko may refer to: * Yuko (judo) (''yūkō''), a score in judo competition * Yuko (Ukrainian band), a Ukrainian band * Yūko, a Japanese female given name (including a list of persons with the name) * Yuko, a Belgian band * Yuko people Yukpa is ...
and Gian Marco Farese.


Semantic primes

Semantic primes Semantic primes or semantic primitives are a set of semantic concepts that are argued to be innately understood by all people but impossible to express in simpler terms. They represent words or phrases that are learned through practice but cannot ...
(also known as semantic primitives) are concepts that are ''universal'', meaning that they can be translated literally into any known language and retain their semantic representation, and ''primitive'', as they are proposed to be the most simple linguistic concepts and are unable to be defined using simpler terms. Proponents of the NSM theory argue that every language shares a core vocabulary of concepts. In 1994 and 2002, Goddard and Wierzbicka studied languages across the globe and found strong evidence supporting this argument. Wierzbicka's 1972 study proposed 14 semantic primes. That number was expanded to 60 in 2002 by Wierzbicka and Goddard, and the current agreed-upon number is 65. Each language's translations of the semantic primes are called exponents. Below is a list of English exponents, or the English translation of the semantic primes. It is important to note that some of the exponents in the following list are
polysemous Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single ...
and can be associated with meanings in English (and other languages) that are not shared. However, when used as an exponent in the Natural semantic metalanguage, it is only the prime concept which is identified as universal. The following is a list of
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
exponents of semantic primes adapted from Levisen and Waters (eds.) 2017.


NSM syntax

NSM primes can be combined in a limited set of syntactic frames that are also universal. These valency options specify the specific types of grammatical functions that can be combined with the primes. While these combinations can be realized differently in other languages, it is believed that the meanings expressed by these syntactic combinations are universal. Example of valency frames for SAY (from Semantic Analysis) * someone said something→ inimal frame* someone said: '––'→ irect speech* someone said something to someone→ lus 'addressee'* someone said something about something/someone→ lus 'locutionary topic'


Explications

A semantic analysis in the NSM approach results in a reductive paraphrase called an explication that captures the meaning of the concept explicated. An ideal explication can be substituted for the original expression in context without change of meaning. For example: ''Someone X killed someone Y'': * someone X did something to someone else Y * because of this, something happened to Y at the same time * because of this, something happened to Y's body * because of this, after this Y was not living anymore ''(archived at'''')''


Semantic molecules

Semantic molecules are intermediary words used in explications and cultural scripts. While not semantic primes, they can be defined exclusively using primes. Semantic molecules can be determined as words that are necessary to build upon to explicate other words. These molecules are marked by the notation in explications and cultural scripts. Some molecules are proposed to be universal or near-universal, while others are culture- or area-specific. Examples of proposed universal molecules:


Applications


Minimal English

Minimal English is a derivative of the natural semantic metalanguage research, with the first major publication in 2018. It is a reduced form of English designed for non-specialists to use when requiring clarity of expression or easily translatable materials. Minimal English uses an expanded set of vocabulary to the semantic primes. It includes the proposed universal and near-universal molecules, as well as non-universal words which can assist in clarity. As such, it already has counterparts targeted at speakers of other natural languages, e.g. Minimal French, Minimal Polish, 65 Sanaa (''Minimal Finnish'') and so on. Minimal English differs from other simple Englishes (such as
Basic English Basic English (British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is an English-based controlled language created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teach ...
) as it has been specifically designed for maximal cross-translatability.


Language engineering

Applications of NSM have also been proposed for
natural-language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to proc ...
,
natural-language understanding Natural-language understanding (NLU) or natural-language interpretation (NLI) is a subtopic of natural-language processing in artificial intelligence that deals with machine reading comprehension. Natural-language understanding is considered an A ...
and
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
.''Semantic Decomposition and Marker Passing in an Artificial Representation of Meaning'', Doctoral Thesis of Johannes Fähndrich at the Technischen Universität Berlin 2018 https://d-nb.info/1162540680/34


Revivalistics

Ghil'ad Zuckermann Ghil'ad Zuckermann ( he, גלעד צוקרמן, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann is Professor of Linguistics and Ch ...
suggests that NSM can be of benefit in revivalistics (
language revitalization Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...
) as it "can neutralize the Western semantic bias involved in reconnecting with ancient Aboriginal traditions using English, and may allow a fuller understanding of the original meaning of the Aboriginal lexical items."


See also

*
Metalanguage In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to describe another language, often called the ''object language''. Expressions in a metalanguage are often distinguished from those in the object language by the use of italics, quot ...
* Semantic decomposition *
Upper ontology In information science, an upper ontology (also known as a top-level ontology, upper model, or foundation ontology) is an ontology (in the sense used in information science) which consists of very general terms (such as "object", "property", "rela ...


References


Sources

* Goddard, Cliff. 1998. ''Semantic Analysis: A practical introduction. Oxford. Oxford University Press. * Goddard, Cliff (ed.) 2006. ''Ethnopragmatics – Understanding discourse in cultural context''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. * Goddard, Cliff (ed.) 2008. ''Cross-Linguistic Semantics''. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. * Goddard, Cliff and Wierzbicka, Anna (eds.). 1994. ''Semantic and Lexical Universals – Theory and Empirical Findings''. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. * Goddard, Cliff and Wierzbicka, Anna (eds.). 2002. ''Meaning and Universal Grammar: Theory and Empirical Findings'' (2 volumes). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. * Harkins, Jean & Anna Wierzbicka. 2001. ''Emotions in Crosslinguistic Perspective''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. * Peeters, Bert (ed.) 2006.
Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages
'. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. * Wierzbicka, Anna. 1972. ''Semantic Primitives''. Frankfurt: Athenäum. * Wierzbicka, Anna. 1992. ''Semantics, Culture, and Cognition''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. ''Semantics: Primes and Universals''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. ''Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Wierzbicka, Anna. 1999. ''Emotions Across Languages and Cultures''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Wierzbicka, Anna. 2003 (1991). ''Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction''. 2nd edition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. * Wierzbicka, Anna. 2006. ''English: Meaning and culture''. New York: Oxford University Press.


External links


Natural Semantic Metalanguage at Griffith University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Natural Semantic Metalanguage Semantics Pragmatics