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Reductive Paraphrase and Meaning: A Critique of Wierzbickian Semantics

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Abstract

This article explores some fundamental issues of definition-based lexical semantic research through a critique of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory of semantic and grammatical description (Wierzbicka 1996, Semantics. Primes and Universals, Oxford University Press, Oxford). NSM is criticized for attaching excessive importance to explanatory definition, for its adoption of the reductive requirement that a definiens be simpler than a definiendum, and for its use of ‘canonical contexts’ to disambiguate meaning. The principle of substitutability, according to which a definition of a term is accepted if it can be substituted for the term itself, is also critically examined, and the theory’s use of syntactic phenomena as evidence for polysemy is shown to be inconsistent. Finally, suggestions that NSM may be a valid analytical method for only a subpart of the lexicon are rejected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of Sydney, Woolley Building A20, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Nick Riemer

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  1. Nick Riemer
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Correspondence to Nick Riemer.

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Thanks to Mengistu Amberber, Bill Foley, Pauline Jacobson, Alex Jones, Manfred Krifka, Jane Simpson and the anonymous L&P reviewers for useful suggestions. An earlier version of some of these arguments appeared in Riemer (2005).

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Riemer, N. Reductive Paraphrase and Meaning: A Critique of Wierzbickian Semantics. Linguistics & Philosophy 29, 347–379 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-006-0001-4

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