Semantics: Primes and universals By Anna Wierzbicka (review)

180LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 1 (1998) manic Verb Second phenomenon. Working papers in Scandinavian syntax 50.1-24. Lund: University of Lund Department of Linguistics. Rrzzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ans van Kemenade Vrije Universiteit Department of English de Boelelaan 1 105 1081 HV Amsterdam The Netherlands [kemenade@let.vu.nl] Semantics: Primes and universals. By Anna Wierzbicka. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xii, 500. $105.00. Reviewed by Bert Peeters, University of Tasmania Anna Wierzbicka's contribution to semantics, to the exploration of what she so aptly calls 'the dazzling beauty of the universe of meaning' (233), has been and continues to be immense. W has left on the semantic enterprise an indelible mark which generations of linguists to come will thankfully acknowledge. This is yet another collection of her papers, and at the time of writing it was clear that it would by no means be the last. Previously unpublished (like Chs. 2 and 3, and unlike all the others), Ch. 1 ('Introduction', 3-34) presents the newcomer to natural semantics (which is how W's theoretical framework has come to be known) with the necessary background to tackle the rest of the book. When I say 'previously unpublished', I mean 'in this format'. Having translated extracts from W's earlier work into French for an issue of the journal Langue française devoted to semantic primitives (Peeters 1993), I recognize large chunks of material inserted here without major rewriting. Ch. 1 deals with the importance of analyzing meaning not by any old means but with the help of a set of semantic primitives, all of which are lexical universals (although the opposite is not true) and presumably innate concepts; it also deals with questions of syntax (e.g. the combinability of primitives, the issue of verb valency, etc.). Furthermore, the reader is provided with a short history of natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) and with an account of how the theory has come to deal with phenomena such as polysemy and allolexy, to mention but a few. On p. 28, W falls prey, after so many others, to the belief that the phrase où tout se tient is to be found in Saussure. It isn't (cf. e.g. Peeters 1985, 1991a). Ch. 2 (? survey of semantic primitives', 35-111) provides separate sections dealing with old primitives (i.e. the list put to the test in Goddard/Wierzbicka 1994) and new primitives (added in the last couple of years). The continued expansion of the NSM is to be applauded, especially since it goes hand in hand with extensive empirical research aimed at avoiding the inclusion of concepts which do not meet NSM's rigorous standards. There is no comprehensive table of semantic primitives given anywhere in the volume. I will redress that lack below; the descriptors in the left column are cover terms for sets of interrelated concepts and are not themselves part of the metalanguage. The new primitives are in italic. substantivesI, YOU, SOMEONE, SOMETHING, PEOPLE determinersTHIS, THE SAME, OTHER, SOME quantifiersONE, TWO, MANY (MUCH), ALL augmentarMORE mental predicatesTHINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR nonmental predicatesMOVE, THERE IS, (BE) AUVE speech and wordsSAY, WORD actions and eventsDO, HAPPEN evaluatorsGOOD, BAD REVIEWS181 descriptorsBIG, SMALL timeWHEN, BEFORE, AFTER, A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME, NOW spaceWHERE, UNDER, ABOVE, FAR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE , HERE partonomy and taxonomyPART (OF), KIND (OF) metapredicatesNOT, CAN, VERY interclausal linkersIF, BECAUSE, LIKE imagination and possibilityIF ... WOULD, MAYBE The legitimacy of each primitive is discussed at length. Personally, I would have preferred 'IN' to 'INSIDE' as a space primitive (cf. Peeters 1997 for detailed discussion based on French). The addition of '(BE) ALIVE' is welcome. Some time ago, in a letter to this reviewer, the French lexicologist Jacqueline Picoche queried its absence from the metalanguage; she will now feel vindicated by this recent inclusion. Very interesting throughout Ch. 2 are the frequent references to the literature on child language acquisition in which ample supporting evidence may be found for the appropriateness of various inclusions and exclusions. Because NSM is a metalanguage and not a metalexicon, it has its own universal syntax, discussed at length in Ch. 3 ('Universal grammar: The...