Semantic Primes and their Universal Syntax in Mandarin Chinese: An Update

Abstract

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is an approach to semantic analysis that is based on reductive paraphrase: the meaning of a semantically complex word or sentence is represented by ‘an exact paraphrase composed of simpler, more intelligible words than the original’ (Goddard & Wierzbicka, 2002, p. 5). One of the central claims of NSM is that there exists a finite set of indecomposable meanings (semantic primes) which, in combination, can express any complex meaning, and they have identifiable exponents in each natural language (semantic universals) (cf. Goddard & Wierzbicka, 1994, 2002). There is a large body of descriptive-analytical work done in the framework on a broad range of languages that are typologically diverse (most of which are non Indo-European). Building on the ground-breaking work on Chinese Mandarin primes undertaken by Chappell (1994) and Chappell (2002), the current study aims to review and update the propositions on the semantic universals and their syntactic properties in Mandarin in the light of the development of the NSM framework during the past decade. Hopefully, the findings as well as the problems raised in this thesis will contribute to some newer and fuller understanding on the primes not only in the context of Mandarin but also for the NSM program. Show more