An ideal dictionary definition explains the meaning of its headword using only words that are simpler and easier to understand than the headword being defined. If you repeat this process of "reductive paraphrase" for every headword in the dictionary, you will ultimately find a core subset of headwords that cannot be further reduced to simpler terms. These irreducible words are "semantic atoms" (also called "semantic primes").
By finding and comparing the semantic atoms of many languages, linguist Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues have developed Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), which identifies a common set of concepts appearing as the semantic atoms in all languages. You can find more information about NSM at Griffith University's Natural Semantic Metalanguage Homepage.
NSM semantic atoms and reductive paraphrase are used by Learn These Words First to create a dictionary without circular definitions. Lessons 1 and 2 introduce the 61 NSM semantic atoms in English (the atoms identified as of 2002). These are used to explain 300 "semantic molecules" in Lessons 3 through 12. The rest of the words in the dictionary are defined using only the semantic atoms and molecules.
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2 comments:
[I tried to leave a comment earlier today. But it seems to have vanished.]
Congratulations on this web publication. I think the idea of a non-circular dictionary is one of those profound ideas that ironically seems so logically simple, straight forward and essential a concept and yet it seems has taken 5000 years to be realised.
And of course Anna Wierzbicka and her mentor, Andrzej Bogusławski and her student Cliff Goddard are to be acknowledged for the core inspiration that they have brought to this project.
John McKeon
Future editions of this non-circular dictionary might perhaps be adjusted for the latest additions to the table of semantic elements, namely LITTLE~FEW, BE (SOMEONE/SOMETHING), BE (SOMEWHERE), and DON'T WANT.
[In mentioning this I want to also acknowledge what an enormous amount of work it must have cost the author thus far!!!]
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