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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton December 4, 2007

NSM Semantics versus Conceptual Semantics: Goals and standards (A response to Jackendoff)

  • Anna Wierzbicka

    She is the author of numerous books, including Cross-Cultural Pragmatics (Mouton de Gruyter 1991; 2d edition 2003), Semantics: Primes and Universals (Oxford University Press 1996), Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals (Cambridge University Press 1999), and English: Meaning and Culture (Oxford University Press 2006).

From the journal Intercultural Pragmatics

Abstract

Jackendoff's rejoinder to my response to his comments on NSM in Intercultural Pragmatics 4(3) is entitled “Conceptual semantics and natural semantic metalanguage theory have different goals.” The second paragraph of his article goes a little further: “The two theories, although they overlap on some issues of word meaning, are ultimately asking different questions and setting different standards for answers.” Here, the hint appears to be that when the questions overlap, Jackendoff's “Conceptual Semantics” (which, he says, is embedded in the broader theory of “Parallel Architecture”) sets higher standards for answers than the NSM theory does.

About the author

Anna Wierzbicka

She is the author of numerous books, including Cross-Cultural Pragmatics (Mouton de Gruyter 1991; 2d edition 2003), Semantics: Primes and Universals (Oxford University Press 1996), Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals (Cambridge University Press 1999), and English: Meaning and Culture (Oxford University Press 2006).

Published Online: 2007-12-04
Published in Print: 2007-11-20

© Walter de Gruyter

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