"Sometimes People Think Something Like This": Anna Wierzbicka´s Semantic Primitives - An Introduction to the Theory of Semantic Indefinables (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0 ("Good"), Free University of Berlin, course: Meaning in Language, language: English, abstract: For the past twenty something years, hardly a theory has caused as much uproar and
discussion in Semantics as Anna Wierzbickas theory of the Semantic Primitives. Her
theory, inspired by te works of Leibniz and other inquiries into the relation between
language and thought, and first set out in detail in 1972 in her work "Semantic Primitives",
was among the first serious attempts to "establish" a semantic explanation for the
connection between the meaning of words in human language and human thought
processes: since humans use language as their only known tool to formulate thoughts, it
followed that the meaning of words in any given language could only be explained using
other words. Wierzbicka took up this idea but concluded that in this process of substitution,
that is, of explaining words with other words, it would be logical to try to explain complex
terms in ever less complex terms until, at some point, one would end up with a set of words
that could not, and needed not be, explained further, words that would yet suffice to explain
every other word in a language. Through experimenting, she devised such a set of words
and called these the "Semantic Primitives", in reference to their basic simplicity and
fundamental position in the relation of thought and language. Over the years, Wirzbicka
has constantly refined her theory, and updated the list of Semantic Primitives, and a ever
growing number of scholars of Semantics has begun to adopt Wierzbickas theory, making
it one of the more popular and widely accepted subcurrents in Semnatics.
In this paper, I will try to give a short comprehensive overview on the theory of the
Semantic Primitives, try to work out where the strengths and benefits of this theory lie, and
where it faces difficulties, and attempt to determine how, or whether, it can be applied for
the creation of a Semantic Dictionary.