Semantic primes and grammatical categories∗

My thanks to Jane Simpson and Anna Wierzbicka for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to several anonymous reviewers. I also received helpful comments from a number of people at the Australian Linguistic Society 1995 annual conference, after presenting a version of the paper there. Needless to say, all errors remain my own.

Abstract

This paper argues that all 55 of the semantic primes currently posited in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory (Wierzbicka 1996) are frequently found as components of grammatically encoded meanings. Examples are taken from a wide variety of the world's languages, and include phenomena such as pronoun systems, indefinites, classifiers, reflexives, experiencer constructions, evidentials, locational deixis, tense systems, diminutives and augmentatives, and modality. The study seeks to contribute towards the development of a more rigorous semantic basis for grammatical typology, by demonstrating that the proposed semantic metalanguage is able to encompass and explicate a wide variety of grammaticalised meanings. This finding also cuts across a commonly‐held view that, for the most part, grammatical semantics and lexical semantics call for rather different descriptive tool‐kits.

Notes

My thanks to Jane Simpson and Anna Wierzbicka for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to several anonymous reviewers. I also received helpful comments from a number of people at the Australian Linguistic Society 1995 annual conference, after presenting a version of the paper there. Needless to say, all errors remain my own.