This book provides a synthesis of Wierzbicka's theory of meaning, which is based on conceptual primitives and semantic universals, using empirical findings from a wide range of languages. While addressed primarily to linguists, the book deals with highly topical and controversial issues of central importance to several disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. - ;Conceptual primitives and semantic universals are the cornerstones of a semantic theory which Anna Wierzbicka has been developing for many years. Semantics: Primes and Universals is a major synthesis of her work, presenting a full and systematic exposition of that theory in a non-technical and readable way. It delineates a full set of universal concepts, as they have emerged from large-scale investigations across a wide range of languages undertaken by the author and her colleagues. On the basis of empirical cross-linguistic studies it vindicates the old notion of the 'psychic unity of mankind', while at the same time offering a framework for the rigorous description of different languages and cultures. - ;A major synthesis of Anna Wierzbicka's work -
Semantics: Primes and Universals is a major synthesis of her work, presenting a full and systematic exposition of that theory in a non-technical andreadable way.
This volume is part of a research program which started with the publication, in 1972, of Anna Wierzbicka's groundbreaking work on Semantic Primitives. The first within the program to focus...
This book develops a bold new approach to universal grammar, based on research findings of the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) program.
... Paul Kay, Rolf Kuehni, Paul Ekman, the late Richard Lazarus, Carroll Izard, Rupert Stash, Leonard Katz, Kristen Lindquist, Ray Jackendoff, Dirk Geeraerts, Asifa Majid, Nick Riemer, Jan Wawrzyniak, and Daniel Everett.
It can also provide us with a tool for explaining meanings across cultures in education, business, trade, international relations, and so on.The book contains 13 chapters on individual languages including Japanese (by Masayuki Onishi), ...
Volume one of a set of studies that is founded on the idea that universal grammar is based on - indeed, inseparable from - meaning.
These lively lectures introduce the theory, practice and application of a versatile, rigorous and non Anglocentic approach to cross-linguistic semantics.
Semantic Primitives
This fascinating book explores the bodily expression of emotion in worldwide and culture-specific contexts.
This book presents cross-linguistic and cross-cultural investigations of word meaning from different domains of the lexicon - concrete, abstract, physical, sensory, emotional, and social.