“Semantic Primitives”, fifty years later

Are there any concepts that all human beings share? Three hundred years ago Leibniz was convinced that there are indeed such concepts and that they can be identified by trial and error. He called this hypothetical set the alphabet of human thoughts. Gradually, however, the idea faded from philosophical discourse and eventually it was largely forgotten. It was revived in the early 1960s by the Polish linguist Andrzej Bogusławski. A few years later it was taken up in my own work and in 1972 in my book Semantic Primitives a first hypothetical set of universal semantic primitives was actually proposed. It included 14 elements. Following my emigration to Australia more and more linguists joined the testing of the proposed set against an increasing range of languages and domains. As a result, from mid 1980s the set steadily grew. The expansion stopped in 2014, when the number stabilised at 65, and when Cliff Goddard and I reached the conclusion that this is the full set. This paper reviews the developments which have taken place over the last 50 years. It reaffirms our belief that we have identified, in full, the shared alphabet of human thoughts. It also examines the recurring claim that one of these primes, HAVE PARTS, is not universal. Further, the paper argues that there is not only a shared alphabet of human thoughts but a shared mental language, Basic Human, with a specifiable vocabulary and grammar. It points out that the stakes are high, because what is at issue is not only the psychic unity of humankind (Boas 1911) but also the possibility of a universal human community of communication (Apel 1972). The paper contends that Basic Human can provide a secure basis for a non-Anglocentric global discourse about questions that concern us all, such as global ethics, the earth and its future, and the health and well-being of all people on earth.

‘Minds’ in ‘Homer’: A quantitative psycholinguistic comparison of the Iliad and Odyssey

“My child, why do you weep? What grief has come upon your phrenes (φρένες)? Speak—conceal not in noos (νόος) in order that we both may know,” so speaks Achilles’ mother Thetis as the fierce warrior weeps tears of wrath on the beaches of Troy (Il. 1.362-363). To be sure, noos likely translates as mind in English in the above passage. However, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey include a total of eight such words that may be rendered as mind, heart, or spirit: noos (νόος), thymos (θυμός), psykhe (ψυχή), phrenes (φρένες), prapides (πρᾰπῐ́δες), kardia (κᾰρδῐ́ᾱ), kradie (κρᾰδῐ́η), ker (κῆρ), and etor (ἦτορ). This complicated situation with Greek translations of mind is at the heart of this study’s empirical investigation. To wit, what is mind in the Il. compared to the Od.? The present investigation sought to quantify and compare the use of mental language in the Homeric epics by means of computational linguistics. Prior scholarly investigations have been mostly qualitative; the few quantitative studies conducted utilized miniscule sample sizes of English translations. Two studies were conducted. 17 translators who translated both the Il. and Od. into English were selected (within-subjects design). The texts were sanitized and compiled for lexical frequency analyses in Voyant, a digital linguistic analysis tool. Study 1 compared how often mental language terms appeared in both works. Results showed that total word density of mental language increased significantly from the Il. to the Od. in both English translations as well as in the original Greek version. Study 2 compiled an English glossary of mental language terms and counted the frequencies for the 34 total works. A paired-samples t-test was conducted to compare the mean mental language densities of the Il. and Od. across 17 translators. There was a significant difference in the mean densities for the Il. (M = 68.2, SD = 8.9) and Od. (M = 91.9, SD = 11.6) conditions; t(16) = -17.798, N = 17, p < .001, d = -4.317. Further correlational tests as well as ANCOVA were conducted in order to determine if various factors could explain the large effect size. No significant results were observed or relevant. All hypotheses were supported. These data suggest that the Od. contains much more mental language than the Il. Implications and limitations are discussed.

THE TEXT CONCEPT OF UKRAINE IN A METAPHORICAL VIEW (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF THE NOVEL BY L. KOSTENKO “THE NOTES OF UKRAINIAN SAMASHEDSHYI (MADMAN)”

The article is devoted to the study of cognitive mechanisms of actualization of the discursive topic UKRAINE in L. Kostenko 's fiction novel “The Notes of Ukrainian samashedshyi (madman)”. The interaction of conceptual metaphors, which represent the basic textual concept at a deep level, forms the original conceptual space of the work. The purpose of scientific research is to establish connections between structural, orientations and ontological metaphors of the novel, as well as to describe their semantic content, verbalized at the linguistic level. According to the topic, the object of research is a discursive topic (text concept), the subject – the means of verbalization of conceptual metaphors as its expression. The relevance of the publication theme is determined by the general tendency of linguoconceptology, aimed to the study of conceptual space of the author's literary text. The main method of research is a conceptual analysis applying of methodologies of interpretive, contextual and other types of analysis. In-text and out-of-text level connections, which are viewed by involving background contexts (historical-cultural, socio-cultural, situational, etc.), determine the discursive character of the literary text, in which the key text concept functions as a discursive topic. The metaphorical projection of the text concept UKRAINE is carried out in the context of the political picture of Ukrainian world during the “Orange” revolution. The concept UKRAINE is a structurally and contently complex mental unit of individual consciousness that represents interdependent components due to the author's choice of conceptual metaphor. Keeping the established meanings (state; country where Ukrainians live), the concept acquires specificity due to its rethinking in the mind of the writer, who has an original worldview of modern life in the context of globalization. In interpretation of the conceptual content of analyzed topic, it is important the authors’ assume about the theory of conceptual metaphor that a metaphor affects on the decision-making process of problem situation, in particular on the stage of identifying alternatives to solve the problem. The author's vision of such alternatives is manifested in the systematic use of certain types of metaphors. The emotional and pragmatic potentials of conceptual metaphors have a powerful influence on the reader’s mind. In the process of conceptual analysis the basic spheres of experience, related to the representation of the discursive topic UKRAINE were distinguished. Such spheres are represented by structural metaphors of war, morbid metaphor, game metaphor, etc. Productive metaphorical models of the novel are orientation metaphors, which are based on universal empirical experience and individual experience of the the mental language of ontological metaphors supplements the artistic and journalistic discourse. The author’s created a metaphorical model of Ukrainian reality at the beginning of the XXI century is a diffuse system of intersecting metaphorical projections, updated by the discursive topic. The perspectives for further study of metaphorical models of the Ukrainian writers’ works we see in the possibility of describing the specifics of the individual author's worldview in particular and the national picture of the world in general.

INTERPRETATION OF THE THEME OF LOVE IN THE AUTHOR'S EDUCATIONAL AND FICTION TEXT OF THE TEACHER FOR A FOREIGN AUDIENCE AT THE LEVEL OF RUSSIAN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY B1-C1

The article describes the interpretation of the theme of love in the author's educational fiction text of the teacher for a foreign audience at the level of Russian language proficiency B1-C1 as a key value-semantic concept of the Russian mental-language picture of the world. The author presents, psychological, pedagogical, methodological and philosophical arguments for the need to include this topic in the proposed cycle of short stories. Special attention is paid to how the speech and "creative-motor " (S. V. Dmitriev) dialogue of the situation of love is interconnected with the surrounding socio-cultural space.

LOVE STORIES IN THE AUTHOR'S EDUCATIONAL FICTION TEXT OF THE TEACHER FOR A FOREIGN AUDIENCE

The article describes the interpretation of the theme of love in the author's educational fiction text of the teacher for a foreign audience at the level of Russian language proficiency B1-C1 as a key value-semantic concept of the Russian mental-language picture of the world. The author presents psychological, pedagogical, methodological and philosophical arguments for the need to include this topic in the proposed cycle of short stories. Special attention is paid to how the speech and "creative-motor " (S. V. Dmitriev) dialogue of the situation of love is interconnected with the surrounding socio-cultural space.