A Survey of Semantic Primitives
Anna Wierzbicka · 1996
Abstract The set of primitives presented and discussed in this chapter has evolved in the course of nearly three decades of research by myself and colleaguesand it is still evolving. Some of the primitives proposed here are better established than others. Of the fourteen primitives posited in my Semantic Primitives(1972) ten have survived nearly a quarter of a century of critical assaults (by myself and others), and (with one exception: PART) the position of these original members of the set can be regarded as particularly strong. This old guard includes the “substantives” I, YOU, SOMEONE, and SOMETHING, the “mental predicates” THINK, WANT, FEEL, and SAY, and the demonstrative THIS.