[Lingtyp] semantic role of participant that needs something

Paolo Ramat paoram at unipv.it
Fri Jul 1 10:00:38 UTC 2022


Dear Christian,
still keeping in mind Seiler's slogan  that "language is a problem solving
system", I think (and I suppose that you too are of the same mind !) that
an onomasiological approach to linguistic phenomena is basic and
unavoidable.  The problem is how to elaborate language-independent notions
as 'need', or Anna  Wierzbicka's semantic primitives (if they do exist), or
also metalinguistic concepts like 'avertive verb' and 'uerba timendi'.  I
have no definite answer, but  I believe that cognitive linguistics may help
a lot in understanding this kind of problem. Of course, a cognitive
approach shouldn't be aprioristic: the starting point will always be the
accurate observation of linguistic *facts.*
.Best,
Paolo

Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)

piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
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Il giorno ven 1 lug 2022 alle ore 10:42 Christian Lehmann <
christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> ha scritto:

> For a start, I am ready to agree that Fillmorean semantic roles are a bit
> outdated. Still, some of them, like recipient, experiencer or possessor,
> may be met in publications to this day. So this question is directed to
> those of you who think that under suitable conditions, it makes sense to
> speak of semantic roles (or whatever you prefer to name them).
>
> What is the role of the participant that needs something? On the one hand,
> Latin *carere* and *egere* mean 'to not have'. This would seem to involve
> a possessor. On the other hand, Cabecar *kiana̱* means 'be wanted' and
> *shë́na̱* means ‘be missed’. This would seen to involve an experiencer (a
> pretty ill-defined role, anyway).
>
> Such evidence from descriptive linguistics may imply that the
> presupposition of my question, viz. that there is a language-independent
> notion of 'need', is not fulfilled. This would be a pity, as it would
> render a comparative investigation of the kind 'how is the notion of "X
> needs Y" coded cross-linguistically' (in the spirit, e.g., of the Leipzig
> valency database) more complicated or even - from a theoretical point of
> view - impossible.
>
> Grateful for any helpful suggestions,
> Christian
> --
>
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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