Re: Natural Semantic Metalanguage

At 14:48 +0100 20/11/07, Mr Veoler wrote:
>MorphemeAddict wrote:
>>  Yes, they are.
>>  AW discusses and justifies each prime in "Semantics: Primes and Universals".
>>  ISBN 0-19-870003-2
>>
>>  If you can find it in a library, then you can look at it before (or instead
>>  of) buying.
>>
>>  stevo   </HTML>
>
>I will see if I can find it, though English linguistics books are unheard of
>here in a small Swedish town. But there are other towns. I will probably buy
>the book whenever I will buy Describing Morphosyntax. Thanks.
Something to note is that the theory has undergone substantial
changes over the years.  At one point, Wierzbicka reduced the set of
primes to 11; currently there are over 60.  Books from different
periods may say different things.

I'm reminded of a series of competitions Edward de Bono set in the
columns of a long-deceased science magazine called Science Journal,
back in the 60's.  One of them was to design a language containing
not more than twenty words.  I remember few details, though, and I
don't know of those columns being published in a more lasting form.
But it might be interesting to try the same idea here.

--
Richard Kennaway

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