The main goal of paper is to show how NSM findings about lexical universals (semantic primes) can be applied to semantic analysis in little-described languages. It is argued that using lexical universals as a vocabulary for semantic analysis allows one to formulate meaning descriptions that are rigorous, cognitively authentic, maximally translatable, and free from Anglocentrism. A second goal is to shed light on methodological issues in semantic fieldwork by interrogating some controversial claims about the Dalabon and Pirahã languages. We argue that reductive paraphrase into lexical universals provides a practical procedure for arriving at coherent interpretations of unfamiliar lexical meanings. Other indigenous/endangered languages discussed include East Cree, Arrernte, Kayardild, Karuk, and Maori. We urge field linguists to take the NSM metalanguage, based on lexical universals, into the field with them, both as an aid to lexicogrammatical documentation and analysis and as a way to improve semantic communication with consultants.
2001Natural language semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Amberber, Megistu
2008Semantic primes in Amharic. In Cliff Goddard (ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics, 83-119. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ameka, Felix
1994Ewe. In Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings, 57-86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ameka, Felix
2006‘When I die, don’t cry’: The ethnopragmatics of “gratitude” in West African languages. In Cliff Goddard (ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context, 231-266. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Ameka, Felix
2009Access rituals in West African communities: An ethnopragmatic perspective. In Gunther Senft & Ellen B. Basso (eds.), Ritual Communication, 127-152. New York: Berg.
Ameka, Felix K., Alan Dench & Nicholas Evans
(eds.)2006Catching language: The standing challenge of grammar writing. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko
2009A semantic analysis of Japanese epistemic markers: chigainai and hazuda. Language Sciences 31(5). 837-852.
(ed.)2003-2010Language documentation and description, vols. 1-91. London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, School of Oriental and African Studies.
Bohnemeyer, Jürgen
1998Temporal reference from a radical pragmatics point of view. Why Yucatec Maya does not need to express ‘after’ and ‘before’. Cognitive Linguistics 9(3). 239-282.
Bohnemeyer, Jürgen
2003NSM without the strong lexicalization hypothesis. Theoretical Linguistics 29(3). 223-226.
Bowern, Claire
2008Linguistic fieldwork: A practical guide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bromhead, Helen
2009The reign of truth and faith: Epistemic expressions in 16th and 17th century English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bromhead, Helen
2011aEthnogeographical categories in English and Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara. Language Sciences 33(1). 58-75.
Bromhead, Helen
2011bThe bush in Australian English. Australian Journal of Linguistics 311. 445-471.
2001Emotions and the nature of persons in Mbula. In Jean Harkins & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective, 69-114. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bugenhagen, Robert D
2002The syntax of semantic primitives in Mangaaba-Mbula. In Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Meaning and universal grammar – Theory and empirical findings, vol. I1, 1-64. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
1977Lingua descriptive series questionnaire. Lingua 421. 1-72.
Crowley, Terry
2007Field linguistics: A beginner’s guide (edited and prepared for publication by Nick Thieberger). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dixon, R.M.W. & A.Y. Aikhenvald
2002Word: A typological framework. In R.M.W. Dixon & A.Y. Aikhenvald (eds.), Word: A cross-linguistic typology, 1-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2010Semantic typology. In Jae-Jung Sung (ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic typology, 504-533. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evans, Nicolas, Francesca Merlin & Maggie Tukumba
2004A first dictionary of Dalabon (Ngalkbon). Maningrida: Maningrida Arts and Culture.
Evans, Nicholas & Hans-Jürgen Sasse
2007Searching for meaning in the Library of Babel: Field semantics and problems of digital archiving. In Peter K. Austin (ed.), Language description and documentation, vol. 41, 58-99. London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, School of Oriental and African Studies.
Everett, D.L
2005Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã. Current Anthropology 461. 621-646.
Everett, D.L
2008Don’t sleep. There are snakes. London: Profile Books.
2003Genre, register and language documentation in literate and preliterate communities. In Peter K. Austin (ed.), Language documentation and description, vol. 11, 85-98. London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, School of Oriental and African Studies.
Frank, Michael C., Daniel L. Everett, Evelina Fedorenko & Edward Gibson
2008Number as a cognitive technology: Evidence from Pirahã language and cognition. Cognition 1081. 819-824.
Furbee, N. Louanna
2010Language documentation: Theory and practice. In Lenore A. Grenoble & N. Louanna Furbee (eds.), Language documentation: Practice and values, 3-24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Geeraerts, Dirk
2010Theories of lexical semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gippert, Jost, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann & Ulrike Mosel
(eds.)2006Essentials of language documentation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
2010Russkaja kul’turnaja semantika: ėmocii, cennosti, žiznennye ustanovki[Russian cultural semantics: Emotions, values, attitudes.] Moscow: Languages of Slavic Cultures.
Goddard, Cliff
1991Testing the translatability of semantic primitives into an Australian Aboriginal language. Anthropological Linguistics 33(1). 31-56.
Goddard, Cliff
1994Lexical primitives in Yankunytjatjara. In Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Semantic and lexical universals – Theory and empirical findings, 229-262. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Goddard, Cliff
2000Polysemy: A problem of definition. In Yael Ravin & Claudia Leacock (eds.), Polysemy: Theoretical and computational approaches, 129-151. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goddard, Cliff
2001aSabar, ikhlas, setia – patient, sincere, loyal? A contrastive semantic study of some “virtues” in Malay and English. Journal of Pragmatics 331. 653-681.
Goddard, Cliff
2001bHati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion. In Jean Harkins & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective, 171-200. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Goddard, Cliff
2001cLexico-semantic universals: a critical overview. Linguistic Typology 5(1). 1-66.
Goddard, Cliff
2003Thinking across languages and cultures: Six dimensions of variation. Cognitive Linguistics 14(2-3). 109-140.
Goddard, Cliff
2006Natural semantic metalanguage. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, 2nd edn., 544-551. Oxford: Elsevier.
Goddard, Cliff
2007A “lexicographic portrait” of forgetting. In Mengistu Amberber (ed.), The language of memory in a cross-linguistic perspective, 119-137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2009Cultural scripts. In Gunter Senft, Jan-Ola Östman & Jef Verschueren (eds.), Culture and language use (Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights 2), 68-80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Goddard, Cliff
2010aSemantic molecules and semantic complexity (with special reference to “environmental” molecules). Review of Cognitive Linguistics 8(1). 123-155.
Goddard, Cliff
2010bThe Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. In Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog (eds.) The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis, 459-484. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goddard, Cliff
2011aSemantic analysis, Revised 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goddard, Cliff
2011bThe lexical semantics of ‘language’ (with special reference to ‘words’). Language Sciences 33(1). 40-57.
Goddard, Cliff
2012Semantic primes, semantic molecules, semantic templates: Key concepts in the NSM approach to lexical typology. Linguistics 50(3). 711-743.
2011aContrastive lexical conceptual analysis of folk religious concepts in English, Arabic and Hebrew: NSM approach. PhD thesis, University of New England.
Habib, Sandy
2011bAngels can cross cultural boundaries. RASK, International Journal of Language and Communication 341. 49-75.
Hanks, Patrick W
2007General introduction. In Patrick W. Hanks (ed.), Lexicology: Critical concepts in linguistics, vol. I1, 1–23. Abingdon: Routledge.
Harkins, Jean
2001Talking about anger in Central Australia. In Jean Harkins & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective, 201-220. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
2001Meanings of Japanese sound-symbolic emotion words. In Jean Harkins & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective, 221-258. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
1994Longgu. In Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Semantic and lexical universals – Theory and empirical findings, 310-330. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hinton, Leanne
2001aLanguage revitalisation: An overview. In Leanne Hinton & Kenneth Hale (eds.), The green book of language revitalization in practice, 3-18. Boston: Academic Press.
Hinton, Leanne
2001bThe Karuk language. In Leanne Hinton & Kenneth Hale (eds.), The green book of language revitalization in practice, 191-194. Boston: Academic Press.
Junker, Marie-Odile
2003A native American view of the “mind” as seen in the lexicon of cognition in East Cree. Cognitive Linguistics 14(2-3). 167-194.
Junker, Marie-Odile
2007The language of memory in East Cree. In Mengistu Amberber (ed.), The language of memory in a crosslinguistic perspective, 235-261. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2012The semantics of the Cantonese utterance particle 'laa1'. In M. Ponsonnet, L. Dao & M. Bowler (eds.),
Proceedings of the 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference – 2011
, Australian National University, Canberra ACT, 2-4 December 2011 (pp. 245-280).
Levisen, Carsten
2012Cultural semantics and social cognition. A case study on the Danish universe of meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Levinson, Stephen C. & Sergio Meira
2003‘Natural’ concepts in the spatial topological domain — adpositional meanings in crosslinguistic perspective: An exercise in semantic typology. Language 79(3). 485-516.
Löbner, Sebastian
2002Understanding semantics. London: Arnold Publications.
Macaulay, Monica
2004. On the Karuk directional suffixes. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 30(2). [URL].
Majid, Asifa
2012A guide to stimulus-based elicitation for semantic categories. In Nicholas Thieberger (ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic fieldwork, 54-71. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Majid, Asifa & Melissa Bowerman
(eds.)2007Cutting and breaking events across languages. Cognitive Linguistics 18(2) [Special issue].
Mason, Te Haunihiata
2008The incorporation of Mātauranga Māori or Māori knowledge into Te Mātāpuna, the first monolingual Māori dictionary for adults. In Rob Amery & J. Nash (eds.),
Warra wiltaniappendi Strengthening languages: Proceedings of the Inaugural Indigenous Languages Conference (ILC) 2007
, 35-39. Adelaide: University of Adelaide SA.
Matthewson, Lisa
2004On the methodology of semantic fieldwork. International Journal of American Linguistics 701. 369-415.
Moorfield, John C
2005Te aka. Maori-English, English-Maori dictionary and index. Auckland: Pearson/Longman.
Mosel, Ulrike
1994Samoan. In Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Semantic and lexical universals – Theory and empirical findings, 331-360. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Mosel, Ulrike
2006Grammaticography: The art and craft of writing grammars. In Felix Ameka, Alan Dench & Nicholas Evans (eds.), Catching language: The standing challenge of grammar writing, 41-68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Mosel, Ulrike
2012Morphosyntactic analysis in the field: A guide to the guides. In Nicholas Thieberger (ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic fieldwork, 72-89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Murphy, M. Lynne
2010Lexical meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Myhill, John
1996Is BAD a semantic primitive? Evidence from Biblical Hebrew. Lexicology 2(2). 99-126.
Nicholls, Sophie
2009. Referring expressions and referential practice in Roper Kriol (Northern Territory, Australia). University of New England dissertation. [URL].
2010La métalangue sémantique naturelle: acquis et défis. In J. François (ed.), Grandes voies et chemins de traverse de la sémantique cognitive, 75-101. Leuven: Peeters.
Pica, P., C. Lemer, V. Izard & S. Dehaene
2004Exact and approximate arithmetic in an Amazonian indigene group. Science 3061. 499-503.
Ponsonnet, Maïa
2009Aspects of the semantics of intellectual subjectivity in Dalabon (southwestern Arnhem Land). Australian Aboriginal Studies 2009(1). 16-28.
2012b. The expression of potential event modality in the Papuan language of Koromu. In M. Ponsonnet, L. Dao & M. Bowler (eds.),
Proceedings of the 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference – 2011
, Australian National University, Canberra ACT, 2-4 December 2011 (pp. 389-422).
Sakel, Jeanette & Everett, Daniel L
2012Linguistic fieldwork: A student guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shi-xu
2000To feel or not to feel, that is the question. Culture & Psychology 6(3). 375-383.
Stanwood, Ryo E
1997The primitive syntax of mental predicates in Hawaii Creole English: A text-based study. Language Sciences 19(3). 209-217.
Stanwood, Ryo E
1999On the Adequacy of Hawai’i Creole English. University of Hawai’i dissertation.
Thieberger, Nicholas
(ed.)2012The Oxford handbook of linguistic fieldwork. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2004The ethnopragmatics of the diminutive in conversational Colombian Spanish. Intercultural Pragmatics 1(2). 249-274.
Travis, Catherine
2006The communicative realization of confianza and calor humano in Colombian Spanish. In Cliff Goddard (ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context, 199-230. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Vanhatalo, Ulla, Anna Idström & Heli Tissari
ForthcomingThe foundations of the Finnish based Natural Semantic Metalanguage.
Warner, Sam L. No'eau
2001The movement to revitalize Hawaiian language and culture. In Leanne Hinton & Kenneth Hale (eds.), The green book of language revitalization in practice, 133-44. Boston: Academic Press.
Wakefield, John C
2011The English equivalents of Cantonese sentence-final particles: A contrastive analysis. Hong Kong Polytechnic University dissertation.
Wierzbicka, Anna
1996Semantics: Primes and universals. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna
2002Semantic primes and universal grammar in Polish. In Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), Meaning and universal grammar – Theory and empirical findings, Vol. II1, 65-144. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Wierzbicka, Anna
2006English: Meaning and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2008Case in NSM: A reanalysis of the polish dative. In Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer (eds.), The Oxford handbook of case, 151-169. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna
2009The theory of the mental lexicon. In Sebastian Kempgen, Peter Kosta, Tilman Berger & Karl Gutschmidt (eds.), Die slavischen Sprachen/The slavic languages: Eine internationales Handbuch zu ihrer Struktur, ihrer Geschichte und ihrer Erforsching/An international handbook of their structure, their history and their investigation, 848-863. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, Anna
2010aExperience, evidence, and sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. New York: Oxford University Press.
2014Imprisoned in English: The hazards of English as a default language. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna
in press. Two levels of verbal communication: Universal and culture-specific. In Louis de Saussure & Andrea Rocci (eds.), The handbooks of communication science, Volume 3: Verbal communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, Anna
Forthcoming. Back to 'mother' and 'father': Overcoming the Eurocentrism of kinship studies through eight universal semantic molecules.
Wilson, William H. & Kaijanoe Kamanā
2001“Mai Loko Mai O ka ‘I’ini: Proceeding from a dream”: The ‘Aha Pūnana Leo Connection in Hawaiian language revitalization. In L. Hinton & K. Hale (eds.), The green book of language revitalization in practice, 147-178. Boston: Academic Press.
Wong, Jock
2005“Why you so Singlish one?” A semantic and cultural interpretation of the Singapore English particle one. Language in Society 34(2). 239-275.
Wong, Jock
2010The triple articulation of language. Journal of Pragmatics 42(11). 2932-2944.
Wong, Jock
in press. The Culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ye, Zhengdao
2006Why the ‘inscrutable’ Chinese face? Emotionality and facial expression in Chinese. In Cliff Goddard (ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context, 127-169. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
2010Eating and drinking in Mandarin and Shanghainese: A lexical-conceptual analysis. In E. Christensen, E. Schier & J. Sutton (eds.),
ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science
, 375-383. Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science.
Yoon, Kyung-Joo
2006Constructing a Korean Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Seoul: Hankook Publishing Co.
2023. “Keeping Words in Context”: Language Policy and Social Identification in an Immigrant Job Training Program. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 22:2 ► pp. 137 ff.
Forbes, Alexander
2020. Using Minimal English to Model a Parental Understanding of Autism. In Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication, ► pp. 143 ff.
Hinrichs, Nicolás, Maryam Foradi, Tariq Yousef, Elisa Hartmann, Susanne Triesch, Jan Kaßel & Johannes Pein
2022. Embodied Metarepresentations. Frontiers in Neurorobotics 16
Holden, Josh
2019. Semantic Primes In Denesųłiné: In Search of Some Lexical “Universals”. International Journal of American Linguistics 85:1 ► pp. 75 ff.
Levisen, Carsten
2017. The social and sonic semantics of reggae: Language ideology and emergent socialities in postcolonial Vanuatu. Language & Communication 52 ► pp. 102 ff.
Levisen, Carsten
2019. Biases we live by: Anglocentrism in linguistics and cognitive sciences. Language Sciences 76 ► pp. 101173 ff.
2017. Number. In The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology, ► pp. 440 ff.
Newman, John
2020. Our ordinary lives: Pathways to a more human-oriented linguistics. In Meaning, Life and Culture: In conversation with Anna Wierzbicka, ► pp. 319 ff.
Roettger, Timo B.
2021. Preregistration in experimental linguistics: applications, challenges, and limitations. Linguistics 59:5 ► pp. 1227 ff.
van Lier, Eva
2016. Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages. Linguistic Typology 20:2 ► pp. 197 ff.
2016. Overcoming the Eurocentrism in Psychological Anthropology with Lexical Universals: A Response to Naomi Quinn. Ethos 44:3 ► pp. 195 ff.
Wierzbicka, Anna
2016. Back to ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’: Overcoming the Eurocentrism of Kinship Studies through Eight Lexical Universals. Current Anthropology 57:4 ► pp. 408 ff.
Wierzbicka, Anna
2016. Making sense of terms of address in European languages through the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). Intercultural Pragmatics 13:4 ► pp. 499 ff.
Wierzbicka, Anna & Cliff Goddard
2018. Talking about our Bodies and their Parts in Warlpiri. Australian Journal of Linguistics 38:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 september 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.