Cross-linguistic semantics / edited by Cliff Goddard.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Goddard, Cliff.

Series:

Studies in language companion series ; v. 102.

Studies in language companion series ; v. 102

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metalanguage.

Semantics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (376 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia ; Amsterdam : John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2008.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Cross-linguistic semantics - investigating how languages package and express meanings differently - is central to the linguistic quest to understand the nature of human language. This set of studies explores and demonstrates cross-linguistic semantics as practised in the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) framework, originated by Anna Wierzbicka. The opening chapters give a state-of-the-art overview of the NSM model, propose several theoretical innovations and advance a number of original analyses in connection with names and naming, clefts and other specificational sentences, and discourse anaphora. Subsequent chapters describe and analyse diverse phenomena in ten languages from multiple families, geographical locations, and cultural settings around the globe. Three substantial studies document how the metalanguage of NSM semantic primes can be realised in languages of widely differing types: Amharic (Ethiopia), Korean, and East Cree. Each constitutes a lexicogrammatical portrait in miniature of the language concerned. Other chapters probe topics such as inalienable possession in Koromu (Papua New Guinea), epistemic verbs in Swedish, hyperpolysemy in Bunuba (Australia), the expression of "momentariness" in Berber, ethnogeometry in Makasai (East Timor), value concepts in Russian, and "virtuous emotions" in Japanese. This book will be valuable for linguists working on language description, lexical semantics, or the semantics of grammar, for advanced students of linguistics, and for others interested in language universals and language diversity.

Contents:

Cross-Linguistic Semantics

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

List of contributors

List of tables, figures and appendices

CHAPTER 1. Natural Semantic Metalanguage: The state of the art

CHAPTER 2. New semantic primes and new syntactic frames: "Specificational BE" and "abstract THIS/IT"

CHAPTER 3. Towards a systematic table of semantic elements

CHAPTER 4. Semantic primes in Amharic

CHAPTER 5. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage of Korean

CHAPTER 6. Semantic primes and their grammar in a polysynthetic language: East Cree

CHAPTER 7. Hyperpolysemy in Bunuba, a polysynthetic language of the Kimberley, Western Australia

CHAPTER 8. Re-thinking THINK in contrastive perspective: Swedish vs. English

CHAPTER 9. Identification and syntax of semantic prime MOMENT in Tarifyt Berber

CHAPTER 10. The ethnogeometry of Makasai (East Timor)

CHAPTER 11. The semantics of "inalienable possession" in Koromu (PNG)

CHAPTER 12. Tolerance: New and traditional values in Russian in comparison with English

CHAPTER 13. Two "virtuous emotions" in Japanese: Nasake/joo and jihi

Author index

Language and language families index

Subject index

The Studies in Language Companion Series.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

9786612152047

9781282152045

1282152041

9789027291370

9027291373

OCLC:

648354244