Orð og tunga - 01.06.2012, Page 24

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Orð og tunga
nsm was developed in support of a program of "reductive para-
phrase", in which the meaning of complex expressions is given us-
ing simple terms. The simple terms express irreducible fundamental
concepts which have exponents in all languages. nsm is therefore
intended as a kind of universal conceptual interlingua. Like saldo,
the primitive terms of nsm are descriptively substantive and rela-
tively high fretjuency; of the 51 lexical primitives of saldo and 61
semantic primitives of nsm, there are 17 shared terms, including:
good, do, think, want, when, where, not, if. It proves to be signifi-
cant, however, that nsm aims at a set of universal paraphrase terms
which can be used for building sense definitions of lexical items in
all languages, whereas saldo (saldo Instruktion, p. 10) aims at "sá
homogena och intuitivt tilltalande horisontella lexemklasser som
möjligt"5 for Swedish, in which the small lexical groupings emerge
organically from the internal properties of the Swedish vocabulary
system, rather than being imposed externally from a preconceived
typology ("Större strukturer i lexikonet váxer fram organiskt, utan
kontroll 'uppifrán' eller 'utifrán'."6) One nice example of this is the
relative centrality of comparative like. It is a central term in nsm be-
cause the relation of comparison is understood as a primitive con-
ceptual relation. It is, however, four steps from the core of saldo.
Another example discussed by Borin & Forsberg (2009: 9) concerns
antonymy. In saldo, antonyms can be related by a mother-child re-
lation: in saldo, the mother of dálig 'bad' is bra 'good'; the father
of dalig 'bad' is motsats 'opposite'. So in saldo, bra 'good' is treated
as a primitive concept and dálig 'bad' derived with respect to it by
opposition or contrast; in nsm, good and bad are treated as primitive
evaluative terms which can be used to paraphrase classes of more
complex expressions.
Although saldo and nsm differ radically from the wordnets in the
kinds of terms thát we find at the roots of their hierarchies, they nev-
ertheless show significant differences related to their contrasting at-
titudes to universal conceptual structure versus language-particular
lexical organisation.
5 "a horizontal grouping of lexemes which is as homogeneous and intuitively
appealing as possible" (my translation).
6 "Larger structures in the lexicon develop organically, without imposition 'from
above' or 'from outside'.'' (my translation).