Towards a systematic table of semantic elements

Abstract

Semantic primes can be seen to fall into natural groups according to their grammatical properties and functional affiliations. This chapter explores ways in which these groupings, properties and affiliations can be systematised and displayed in tabular form, by analogy with the Periodic Table of chemical elements. It begins by reviewing the current "thematic" grouping of primes, observing that some of the categories, e.g. "time", "space", "logical elements", contain elements of syntactically heterogeneous kinds. It then works in tum through different sections of the prime inventory, exploring tabular layouts which better display alignments such as deictic character, similar valency and complementation properties, the possibility of scalar modification, and so on. Non-compositional semantic relationships, as evidenced by cross-linguistically recurrent patterns of polysemy, are also taken into account to some extent. While incomplete in some respects, the investigation brings to light a number of findings about the structure and internal dynamics of the natural semantic metalanguage.