Editing Natural semantic metalanguage (section)

==Semantic primes==
Semantic primes (also known as semantic primitives) are concepts that are ''universal'', meaning that they can be translated literally into any known language and retain their semantic representation, and ''primitive'', as they are proposed to be the most simple linguistic concepts and are unable to be defined using simpler terms.<ref name="Lexical Meaning" />

Proponents of the NSM theory argue that every language shares a core vocabulary of concepts. In 1994 and 2002, Goddard and Wierzbicka studied languages across the globe and found strong evidence supporting this argument.<ref name="Lexical Meaning" />

Wierzbicka's 1972 study<ref name="Semantic Primitives">{{Cite book|title=Semantic Primitives|last=Wierzbicka|first=Anna|publisher=Athenäum|year=1972}}</ref> proposed 14 semantic primes. That number was expanded to 60 in 2002 by Wierzbicka and Goddard, and the current agreed-upon number is 65.<ref name="Semantics of Nouns">{{Cite book|title=The Semantics of Nouns|editor-last=Ye|editor-first=Zhengdao|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2017|isbn=9780198736721}}</ref><ref name="Words and Meanings">{{Cite book|title=Words and Meanings: Lexical Semantics across Domains, Languages and Cultures|last1=Goddard|first1=Cliff|first2=Anna|last2=Wierzbicka|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2014|isbn=9780199668434|location=Oxford}}</ref>

Each language's translations of the semantic primes are called exponents. Below is a list of English exponents, or the English translation of the semantic primes. It is important to note that some of the exponents in the following list are [[polysemy|polysemous]] and can be associated with meanings in English (and other languages) that are not shared. However, when used as an exponent in the Natural semantic metalanguage, it is only the prime concept which is identified as universal.

The following is a list of [[English language|English]] exponents of semantic primes adapted from [[Levisen]] and Waters (eds.) 2017.<ref name="Cultural Keywords"/>

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Category !! Primes
|-
| [[noun substantive|Substantive]]s || I, you, someone, people, something/thing, body
|-
| Relational Substantives || kind, part
|-
| [[Determiner (linguistics)|Determiners]] || this, the same, other~else~another
|-
| [[Quantifier (linguistics)|Quantifiers]] || one, two, some, all, much/many, little/few
|-
| Evaluators || good, bad
|-
| Descriptors || big, small
|-
| Mental [[Predicate (grammar)|predicate]]s || think, know, want, don't want, feel, see, hear
|-
| [[Speech]] || say, words, true
|-
| [[wikt:action|Actions]], [[wikt:event|Events]], [[Motion (physics)|Movement]] || do, happen, move
|-
| [[Existence]], [[Ownership|Possession]] || be (somewhere), there is, be (someone/something), (is) mine
|-
| Life and Death || live, die
|-
| Time || when/time, now, before, after, a long time, a short time, for some time, moment
|-
| Space || where/place, here, above, below, far, near, side, inside, touch (contact)
|-
| Logical concepts || not, maybe, can, because, if
|-
| [[Intensifier]], Augmentor || very, more
|-
| Similarity || like/as/way
|}

===NSM syntax===
NSM primes can be combined in a limited set of [[Case grammar|syntactic frames]] that are also universal.<ref name="Semantic Analysis" /> These [[Valency (linguistics)|valency]] options specify the specific types of grammatical functions that can be combined with the primes. While these combinations can be realized differently in other languages, it is believed that the meanings expressed by these syntactic combinations are universal.

Examples of valency frames for the "say" semantic prime:

* someone said something→[minimal frame]
* someone said: '––'→[direct speech]
* someone said something to someone→[plus 'addressee']
* someone said something about something/someone→[plus 'locutionary topic']<ref name="Semantic Analysis" />

===Explications===
A semantic analysis in the NSM approach results in a reductive paraphrase called an explication that captures the meaning of the concept explicated.<ref name="Semantic Analysis">{{Cite book|title=Semantic Analysis|last=Goddard|first=Cliff|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2011|isbn=9780199560288}}</ref> An ideal explication can be substituted for the original expression in context without change of meaning.

For example: ''Someone X broke something Y'':

:someone X did something to something Y
:because of this, something happened to Y at the same time
:it happened in one moment
:because of this, after this Y was not one thing anymore
:people can think about it like this: "it can't be one thing anymore"<ref>{{cite web|last=Goddard|first=Cliff|title=The Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach|url=http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/419064/Goddard_2010_OUP_Handbook_Ch18.pdf|website=Griffith University|access-date=27 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140605051950/http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/419064/Goddard_2010_OUP_Handbook_Ch18.pdf|archive-date=5 June 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>