Summary
#e purpose of this paper is to review some basic postulates of the theory of semantic 
primitives (semantic primes) and to evaluate the applicability of the natural semantic 
metalanguage in cross-cultural translation. #e theory of semantic primes, formulated 
by Anna Wierzbicka and her colleagues, posits a universal set of cognitive primitives, 
lexicalized in all natural languages, which, combined into canonical sentences of 
basic syntactic patterns, constitute a natural semantic metalanguage (NSM). NSM 
is put forward as an alternative to traditional lexicographic definitions of words, 
to componential and prototypical semantic analysis, and, as tertium comparationis, 
presented as a more effective tool in translating culture-specific words and ethnosyntactic 
features. 
Key words: semantic prime, canonical sentence, natural semantic metalanguage, cognitive 
syntax, ethnosyntax cross-cultural translation
 Povzetek
Namen pričujočega sestavka je predstaviti osnovne postulate teorije o pomenskih 
primitivih (prapomenih) in oceniti uporabnost naravnega pomenskega metajezika 
v medkulturnem prevodoslovju. Teorija, kot jo je oblikovala Anna Wierzbicka s 
svojimi sodelavci, predpostavlja obstoj univerzalnega seznama kognitivnih primitivov, 
ki so ubesedeni v vseh naravnih jezikih in ki, združeni v kanonične stavke osnovnih 
skladenjskih vzorcev, tvorijo t. i. naravni pomenski metajezik (NPM). Ta naj bi 
predstavljal boljšo izbiro, kot so tradicionalne slovarske definicije besed, oznake 
formalne in prototipske pomenske razčlembe, kot tertium comparationis pa naj bi 
ponujal tudi bolj učinkovito orodje pri prevajanju kulturno-specifičnih besed in 
etnoskladenjskih pojavov. 
Ključne besede: prapomen, kanonični stavek, naravni pomenski metajezik, kognitivna 
skladnja, medkulturni prevod
 DOI: 10.4312/elope.6.1-2.29-41

1.1 One of the central arguments of contemporary linguistics – the question of the autonomy 
of linguistic systems – still causes a relatively sharp divide between formalists and functionalists, 
despite the internal heterogeneity of both groups (Newmeyer 1998, 7-19). Formalists perceive 
their mission as the unveiling of the relations between structural elements (grammar), 
independently from semantic (and pragmatic) content. Most of them recognize Noam 
Chomsky’s leading role in the field, which he assumed with the transformational-generative 
grammar (1955; 1957; 1965), and consolidated with the government and binding theory and 
principles and parameters grammar (1981; 1995). According to Chomsky, the autonomy of the 
formal structure of the language is best manifested in the set of phrase structure rules: 
#ere is (...) no way to show that semantic considerations play a role in the choice of 
the syntactic or phonological component of grammar or that semantic features (in any 
significant sense of this term) play a role in the functioning of the syntactic or phonological 
rules (Chomsky 1965, 226).
Functionalists reject the idea of the autonomy of syntax. Both the generative and the 
interpretative aspects of language are dictated by the communicative function of the language: 
the formal properties of the language depend on the categorization of the extra-linguistic 
reality and the principles of effective communication. #e primary function of language is 
to serve “as a vehicle for rational thought” (Newmeyer 1998, 1-2) or “to establish, reinforce, 
maintain, and express social relationships rather than convey information” (Van Valin 1981, 
59). #e main reproach directed at formalists is that their theory is not explanatory:
#ere is one thing, however, that a formal model can never do: it cannot explain a single 
thing. (...) #e history of transformational-generative linguistics boils down to nothing 
but a blatant attempt to represent the formalism as theory, to assert that it ‘predicts a 
range of facts’, that it ‘makes empirical claims’ and that is somehow ‘explains’ (Givón 
1979, 5-6).
Despite occasional animosity, the two approaches are mutually exclusive only in their extremes. 
At least one group of functionalists, cognitive linguists such as Langacker, Lakoff, Givón, 
Haiman, Fillmore, Croft and Wierzbicka, come from a formalist (generative) background. 
While refuting the autonomy of syntax, they accept the independence of linguistic competence 
from linguistic performance, and even the autonomy of grammar as a cognitive system, the 
principles of which are independent from the extra-linguistic factors.
1
#e core of the contention between the formalists and functionalist is the understanding 
of the assignment of meaning to the chain of sounds. Bloomfield (1933, 27), who believed 
 On the possibility and necessity to reconcile the formalist and the functionalist views, see Newmayer 1991, 1992 and 1998.

linguistics to be a taxonomic and descriptive discipline, conceded that “in human speech, 
different sounds have certain meanings. To study this coordination of certain sounds with 
certain meanings is to study language”. Nevertheless, a systematic study of semantics is 
pointless to Bloomfield, since it is impossible to discern the linguistic from the extra-
linguistic components of the meaning, which are determined, at all times, by the pragmatic 
circumstances and practical experience of those involved in communication. #e meaning 
of a linguistic expression can be defined only with regards to “the situation in which the 
speaker utters it. In order to give a scientifically accurate definition of meaning for every 
form of language, we should have to have a scientifically accurate knowledge of everything 
in the speaker’s world” (1933, 139–140).
#e generative grammar of the second half of the 20
th
 century could not ignore the semantic 
component of language either. In his Syntactic Structures, Chomsky admits to correlation 
between syntax and meaning, but he “defers” the study of it to some other, more general theory 
of language:  
Nevertheless, we do find many important correlations, quite naturally, between syntactic 
structure and meaning... #ese correlations could form part of the subject matter for a 
more general theory of language concerned with syntax and semantics and their points of 
connection (1957, 108).
#e distinction between the semantic and pragmatic analysis, between linguistic and cognitive 
categories, remains a tough problem even in contemporary linguistics. According to Anna 
Wierzbicka (1996), these problems should nevertheless provide no excuse for neglecting the 
semantic component of language. #e exclusion of meaning from the study of language is as 
ridiculous as the study of traffic signs from the point of view of their physical properties, such as 
paint or weight, without making reference to their content (1996, 3). 
 2.1 One definition of the meaning of a word is “a scientific hypothesis about the concept 
encoded in a given word” (Robinson 1950, 41). Most concepts encoded in human language 
are “complex” in the sense that they can be decomposed into simpler components. To state the 
meaning of the word is to reveal the configuration of relatively simple concepts encoded in it. 
As Aristotle puts it, “the right way to define [the meaning] is (...) through what is absolutely 
more intelligible” (cited in Wierzbicka 1996, 3). #e meaning of some words, however, cannot 
be decomposed. Pascal (1667), Descartes (1701) and Leibniz (1765) understood that human 
languages have words for concepts that could not be broken down into simpler concepts. To 
begin with Pascal,
It is clear that there are words that cannot be defined; and if nature hadn’t provided for 
this by giving all people the same idea, all our expressions would be obscure: but in fact we 
can use those words with the same confidence and certainty as if they had been explained 
in the clearest possible way: because nature itself has given us, without additional words, 
an understanding of them better than what our art could give through our explanation 
(Pascal 1667/1954, 580). 

Likewise, Descartes: 
Further I declare that there are certain things which we render more obscure by trying to 
define them, because, since they are very simple and clear, we cannot know and perceive 
them better than by themselves (Descartes 1701/1931, 324).
and Leibniz: 
If nothing could be comprehended in itself nothing at all could ever be comprehended. 
(...) accordingly, we can say that we have understood something only when we have 
broken it down into parts which can be understood in themselves (translated and cited 
in Wierzbicka 1996, 11).
Words that, according to Pascal, cannot (need not) be defined and “things” that, according 
to Descartes and Leibniz, can be understood only through themselves are concepts which 
are so basic that they are common to all people, innate and “pre-linguistic”. Centuries later, 
Chomsky reiterates this view: 
Barring miracles, this means that the concepts must be essentially available prior to 
experience, in something like their full intricacy. Children must be basically acquiring 
labels for concepts they already have (1991, 29). 
2.2 While there seems to be no contention with the existence of basic conceptual primitives, 
the question of their identity on the semantic level of language remains open. Lyons (1977, 
331–332) questions “radical semantic universalism”, as well as the thesis of “fixed set of 
semantic components, which are universal in that they are lexicalized in all languages”. #is 
is exactly what Goddard and Wierzbicka propose in their Semantic and Lexical Universals 
(1994): conceptual primitives are not only common to all humans, they are also encoded in 
all natural languages, in lexemes and morphemes which are indefinable and cannot be broken 
down into smaller semantic components. #e list of such semantic primes can be acquired 
through tenacious analysis of as many and as different natural languages as possible. If the 
concepts such as SOMEONE, SOMETHING, WANT represent semantic primes in English, 
QUELQU’UN, QUELQUE CHOSE, VOULOIR must be semantic primes in French, and 
NEKDO, NEKAJ, HOTETI in Slovene. 
2.3 #e list of languages analysed by Wierzbicka and her co-researchers in the attempt to 
validate semantic primes remains open, just as the list of semantic primes is constantly exposed 
to revision and supplementation. Of the original ten semantic primes, proposed in 1972, 
nine have “survived” meticulous inspection: I, YOU, SOMEONE, SOMETHING, THINK, 
WANT, FEEL, SAY, THIS. 
In 1994, twenty-eight new primes were added to the list:
PEOPLE
THE SAME, OTHER
ONE, TWO, MANY/MUCH, ALL
KNOW
•
•
•
•

DO, HAPPEN
GOOD, BAD
BIG, SMALL
WHEN, BEFORE, AFTER
WHERE, UNDER, ABOVE
PART OF , KIND OF ,
NOT, CAN, VERY
IF , BECAUSE, LIKE
In 1996, the list of semantic primes was further extended to:
 SOME, MORE
 SEE, HEAR
 MOVE, THERE IS, BE ALIVE
 AR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE, HERE
 A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME, NOW
 IF ...WOULD, MAYBE
 WORD
According to Wierzbicka, the final number of semantic primes will probably amount to around 
one hundred, but those identified in recent years have yet to be tested before final validation 
(Wierzbicka 1996, 110). 
2.4 Semantic primes make sense only when put in a syntactic frame of meaningful 
combinations: 
#e indefinable word ‘want’  makes sense only if it is put in a certain syntactic frame, 
such as ‘I want to do this’. In positing the elements ‘I’, ‘want’, ‘do’ and ‘this’ as innate and 
universal rules of syntax – I am also positing certain innate an universal rules of syntax 
- not in the sense of some intuitively unverifiable formal syntax à la Chomsky, but in the 
sense of intuitively verifiable patterns determining possible combinations of primitive 
concepts (Wierzbicka 1996, 19).
#e products of conceptual syntax are canonical sentences, such as ‘I want something’, 
‘someone thinks something about something/someone’, ‘you did something bad’, ‘I know 
when something happened’, ‘I want to see this’, ‘someone cannot move’ etc. #ey provide 
an insight into “the language of human mind”, lingua mentalis, which is the real origin of 
syntactic and semantic structures in natural languages: “#e syntax and semantics of natural 
languages are not just special cases of formal syntax and semantics; (...) symbolic structures are 
meaningful to begin with” (Endelman 1992, 239). 
#e identification of semantic primes and their combination within the frame of conceptual 
syntax is the essence of the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM), the absence of which has 
been, according to Wierzbicka, the main reason for the neglect of semantics in linguistics. 
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3.1 #e need to form a culturally independent metalanguage was expressed not only by 
linguists, but also by anthropologists (Rosaldo 1980; Lutz 1988; Kondo 1990; Needham 
1972), who openly deplored the lack of awareness of the “cultural burden” of natural languages 
when describing culture-specific phenomena and concepts.  
#e question of the relation between language and conceptual/perceptual patterns of their 
speakers has been discussed by philologists and linguists ever since the 18
th
 century. #e 
romantic notion of the indissociability of language and culture coincided with the discovery 
of unfamiliar languages (like Sanskrit) and a revival of nationalism in Europe (Kramsch 1998, 
11). In the introduction to his work on the ancient Kawi language of Java, which was published 
in 1836 as !e Heterogeneity of Language and its Influence on the Intellectual Development of 
Mankind, Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote:
#e character and structure of a language expresses the inner life and knowledge of its 
speakers, and that languages must differ from one another in the same way and to the 
same degree as those who use them. Sounds do not become words until a meaning has 
been put into them, and this meaning embodies the thought of a community. (1911 
Encyclopedia Britannica).
#e idea that different people speak differently because they think differently, and that they 
think differently because their language offers them different ways of expressing the world 
around them, was later picked up by Boas (1911), Sapir (1949) and Whorf (1956). #e view 
has been modified to some extent in contemporary linguistics:
#e almost universal outcome of the psychological study of culture and cognition has been the 
demonstration of large differences among cultural groups on a large variety of psychological 
tests and experiments. #is has led to the widespread belief that different cultures produce 
different psychological (in the present case, cognitive) processes, (...) but cultural differences in 
cognition reside more in the situation to which particular cognitive processes are applied than 
in the existence of a process in one cultural group and in absence of another (Cole, Gay, Glick 
and Sharp 1971, 215).
3.2 According to Wierzbicka, words are a society’s most basic cultural artefacts and provide the 
first and best key to a culture’s values and assumptions (1996, 137). If we want to understand 
other cultures, we need to define these words properly. Lexicographic definitions are often 
inaccurate, and dictionaries provide just more or less random lists of circular quasi-synonyms, 
when the only measure of what a good definition is that it shows the meaning of one word by 
several other not synonymous words (Locke 1690/1959, 33–4). #e decomposition of meaning 
into invariable contrastive semantic components, on the other hand, is based on Aristotelian 
understanding of categories, to which entities belong if they possess those distinctive features 
which determine the adherence to individual categories. But the distinction between essential 
and extraneous semantic components is much more complex than the categorization of 
entities. While the component [+animal] is easily recognized as essential in the definition of 

the word ‘cow’, and the component [+brown] is not, the same cannot be done for many other 
words. Langacker finds the absolute predictability of the model questionable and prefers the 
prototype approach, which Rosch (1973) and Wittgenstein (1977) propose when the classical 
decomposition of meaning into contrastive semantic components fails. 
#e standard criterial-attribute model of categorization also exemplifies an expectation of 
absolute predictability. (...) #e prototype model offers a more realistic account in many 
instances, but adopting it implies that class membership is not predictable in absolute terms: 
it is a matter of degree, decreasing as an entity deviates from the prototype, with no specific 
cut-off point beyond which speakers abruptly become incapable of perceiving a similarity 
and thus assimilating an entity to the category (Langacker 1987, 49).
According to Wierzbicka, the prototype approach, too, should be applied “with caution and 
with care, and, above all, (...) combined with verbal definitions, instead of being treated as an 
excuse for not ever defining anything” (1996, 160).
2
  As an alternative to componential and 
prototype analysis of the meaning of words, especially of culture-specific words, she advocates 
the use of NSM, which combines the best of both approaches, but has the advantage over 
them since: 
• Unlike other, artificial intermediary languages, NSM is universally accessible  
and intelligible;
•  NSM is a proper tertitum comparationis in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research;
•  NSM is an effective tool for the identification of ethnosyntactic phenomena. 
3.3 Breaking down the meaning of “untranslatable” culture-specific words into semantic 
primes, and combining these into meningful, universally intelligible canonical sentences, 
relieves their translation of any “residual” or “deficit”. So, for example, the Japanese word 
amae, a specific emotion deeply rooted in the Japanese culture (Doi 1981, 169), and crucial 
for the understanding of the differences between Japanese and Western society, can be defined 
in the following manner (Wierzbicka 1996, 239):
amae
3
(a) X thinks something like this:
(b) when Y thinks about me, Y feels something good
(c) Y wants to do good things for me
(d) Y can do good things for me
(e) when I am near Y nothing bad can happen to me
(f) I don’t have to do anything because of this
(g) I want to be near Y
(h) X feels something good because of this. 
 If the word  is defined as ‘man-made object used for travelling on water’,  this definition could hardly be applied to a boat with 
a hole in it. Restricting definitions to a prototypical boat is not necessary, since a simple change of ‘used for travelling on water’ to 
‘made/designed for travelling on water’ resolves the problem (Wierzbicka, 1996, 149). 
 One Japanese-English dictionary (available at ) defines the adjective  
as ‘sweet’. Doi derives the noun from the ntransitive verb  ‘to depend and presume upon another’s benevo-
lence’ (Doi 197 4, 307). 

Among other words, which can be accurately defined only in NSM, Wierzbicka points 
to semantically similar words, in which the essential contrastive component is elusive (e. 
g. sad, unhappy, distressed, upset or petrified, terrified, horrified). When she compares the 
English word happy (A) with its Polish translation equivalent  szczęśliwy (B) (1996, 215), 
she believes that the additional semantic components of (B) ‘everything is good now’, ‘very 
good’ (instead of ‘good’) and ‘I can’t want anything more now’ (instead of ‘I don’t want 
anything more now’) make it clear why the meaning of the word szczęśliwy,  ‘a rare state of 
profound bliss or total satisfaction’, stands in contrast to the less intense and more pragmatic 
character of happy:
(A) X feels happy
(a) X feels something
(b) sometimes a person thinks something like this:
(c) I wanted this
(d) I don’t want anything more now
(e) because of this, this person feels something good
(f) X feels this
(B) X feels szczęśliwy (glücklich, heureux, srečen)
4
(a)  X feels something
(b)  sometimes a person feels something like this:
(c)  something very good happened to me
(d)  I wanted this 
(e)  everything is good now
(f) I can’t want anything more now
(g)  because of this, this person feels something very good
(h)  X feels like this
3.3 Words do not only reflect a society’s culture. If Boas (1911) and Sapir (1949) still saw the 
influence of culture on language as being mostly in the lexicon, Whorf (1956, 221) suggested 
that “users of markedly different grammars are pointed by the grammars toward different 
types of observation”. #e evidence of how culture permeates the grammatical structure of 
language, and not just the lexicon, is ample and presented in studies such as the ones on 
honorific inflection and agreement in Japanese (Prideaux 1990; Shibatani 1990), noun classes 
and categorization of nouns (Craig 1986), extensive differences in grammar of men’s and 
women’s speech (Dunn 2000), to mention but a few.
In 1979, Anna Wierzbicka coined the term ethnosyntax, which is today used in two senses. 
In its broader sense, it denotes all relations between the entire cultural system (knowledge, 
values, customs) of a community and the morphosyntactic tools of their language.
5
 In its 
narrower sense, the term ethnosyntax refers to the direct encoding of culture-specific semantic 
 The meaning of  is, according to Wierzbicka, identical with the meaning of German and French , and also 
with the meaning of translation equivalents in other Slavic languages.
 Goddard (2002,  53) prefers the term  for this broader use of the word.

content in the morphosyntax of a particular language (Enfield 2002, 5). Again, Wierzbicka is 
convinced that the study of this field can be effective only within the framework of semantic 
primes, and if the description of semantic (conceptual) differences is based on the application 
of NSM as tertium comparationis:
#e grammatical constructions of any natural language encode certain meanings. #ese 
meanings can be ‘deciphered’ and stated in precise and yet intuitively comprehensible 
semantic formulae. To the extent to which the semantic metalanguage in which such 
formulae are worded is language independent and ‘culture-free’, the meanings encoded in 
the grammar of different languages can be compared and the differences between them 
can be shown explicitly (1988, 12). 
A typical example of an ethnosyntatic phenomenon is the encodement of Russian fatalistic 
acceptance of destiny in the morphosyntactic construction impersonal dative-cum-infinitive 
constructions, which have the following forms (all examples from Wierzbicka 1992, 108–16, 
413–28):
a) existential: negative
6
- Person X
7
:dative - Noun Y:genitive 
 Ne bude tebe  nikakogo moroženmogo ‘there will be no ice-cream for you’
b) negation – infinitive verb – person X:dative – noun Y:genitive
 Ne vidat’ tebe etix podarkov ‘you will never see these presents’
c) person X:dative – Mental verb:3SGRefl.
 Emu xotelos’ slyšat’ zvuk ee golosa
 ‘he (felt he) wanted to hear the sound of her’ 
#e common denominator of the above sentences is the connotation that the person referred 
to by the noun phrase in the dative case, the passive participant, cannot achieve the desired 
goal. #e reason for that is not very clear, but it seems as if it comes from someone ‘above’, from 
destiny or God. #is semantic content can be expressed in NSM in the following manner:
(a) Person X wants to do something;
(b) I know: X cannot do it;
(c) If someone wanted to say why X cannot do it, this person could say:
(d) It is like someone above people doesn’t want this to happen. 
#e direct encodment of a particular semantic component on the level of morphosyntax, is 
to Wierzbicka a direct proof of an ethnosyntactic phenomenon. Other frequently quoted 
examples of ethnosyntax discussed by Wierzbicka include the use of diminutives in Russian, 
adversative passive in Japanese (1988), Italian syntactic reduplication (1991) and English 
causal constructions (1998). 
 ‘there isn’t’
 X is the potential recepient of the noun Y, who cannot obtain Y in real life.

4.1 Linguists have had mixed feelings about the work of Anna Wierzbicka. #ey acknowledge 
her precise and in-depth descriptions of grammar and cultural specifics of different nations, 
but at the same time reject most her persistence on the theory of directly indefinable semantic 
primes and the use of natural semantic metalanguage.
Wierzbicka’s work is conspicuously absent from the otherwise excellent recent reviews of 
linguistic anthropology (...) Many scholars are put off by a simple universalist claim at the 
heart of her approach – namely, that all languages have a directly translatable primitive 
semantic core, and it is at this level that linguistic and cultural analysis is to be done 
(Endfield 2002, 5).
4.2 Critics of the theory that semantic primes – i. e. the meanings of lexemes which cannot be 
broken down into smaller semantic components, are directly related to conceptual primitives, 
with which we categorize the world around us – are unnecessarily harsh. #e truth is that this 
theory can neither be empirically verified nor disproved, since the pre-linguistic conceptual 
universe is inaccessible to human cognition. Nevertheless, both the indivisibility of semantic 
primes and their lexicalization in all natural languages can be tested, the list revised, extended 
or reduced, something that Wierzbicka herself admits and feels compelled to do (1996, 3–34). 
Even if semantic primes are not a direct expression of (innate) conceptual primitives, their 
universal character and indivisibility make them appropriate culture-free semantic building 
blocks of lexicographic definitions, much less controversial than the circularity of synonyms 
or quasi-synonyms.  
Where Wierzbicka cannot be followed without reservation is in the application of canonical 
sentences (NSM) in the definition of words. #e analyses which she proposes for culture-
specific or semantically similar words are awkward and impractical, and may require additional 
clarification, which Wierzbicka herself occasionally provides, e. g. in the definition of the 
word game (1996, 159).
8
 Furthermore, these analyses remain arbitrary. When the essential 
contrastive component is expressed in a canonical sentence, the decision about its inclusion 
in the definition formula is, at best, based on the verbal ruling of native speakers, since their 
conceptual perception is not directly accessible. #e application of NSM does not reduce the 
vagueness and subjectivity of the connotative meaning of words any more than the classical 
 (brackets contain Wierzbicka’s commentary)
(a) many kinds of things that people do (games are human activities and there are many kinds of them)
(b) for some time (games are not instantaneous, but have duration)
(c) because they want to feel something good (games are undertaken for pleasure)
(d) when people do this things, one can say these things about these people: (games have some  constant characteristics)
(e) they want some things to happen (games have goals)
(f) if they were not doing these things, they wouldn’t want these things to happen (goals have no meaning outside of the 
game)
(g) they don’t know what will happen (the course of a game is unpredictable)
(h) they know what they can do (games have rules)
(i) they know what they cannot do. 

decomposition of meaning does. #e decoded meaning still depends on the experience of 
the speaker and the hearer, on what they both know and think about the world, on the 
tradition and common culture of their language (discourse) community (communities). In 
cross-cultural translation, at least the one with general public as the target audience, corpora 
analyses seem a more reliable source of information when determining how “specific concepts 
expressed by individual lexical items in specific languages interact with large-scale conceptual 
mappings found in many different languages” (Stefanowitsch 2004,139).
9
Regardless of the above and other reservations, the identification of semantic primes in the lexical 
component of languages is a major contribution to contemporary linguistics. Wierzbicka’s 
insistence that grammatical categories and structures are as indicative of the society’s culture as 
the lexicon is, and that the meanings encoded in them can also be broken down into canonical 
sentences of semantic primes, is particularly ground-breaking. #e application of NSM to 
definitions of words and grammatical structures, especially when verified through tenacious 
corpora analyses, where available, can by no means replace but it certainly can improve the 
classical compositional and prototype semantics, as well as cognitive linguistic and cultural 
studies in general. 
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