What are semantic explications?
Semantic explications are explanatory paraphrases, framed in the metalanguage of simple and universal semantic primes. They can range in length from two or three words to literally dozens of interrelated clauses. They are essentially "texts" composed in a specified subset of ordinary language.
Though they are composed of discrete elements (i.e. words or bound morphemes), semantic explications can be phrased so as to accommodate the subjectivity and vagueness of many meanings.
For example, the following explication shows a semantic description for the verb 'lie' (Wierzbicka 1990) which is fully compatible with the prototypicality effect described by Coleman and Kay (1981). Notice that the final component is a reference to a social evaluation.
someone X lied to someone Y:
- someone X said something to someone else Y
- this someone knew that it was not true
- this someone said it because he/she wanted this other someone to think that it was true
- people think that it is bad if someone does something like this
The happy explication
The next explication, for the English emotion term 'happy' (with the verb 'to be'), shows how a prototypical cognitive scenario can be incorporated into an explication. The feeling experienced by X is not described directly; rather it is described as LIKE the good feeling experienced by a person who thinks certain prototypical thoughts, cf. Wierzbicka (1999) Goddard and Wierzbicka (2014).
someone X is happy (at this time):
- someone X thinks like this at this time:
- "many good things are happening to me as I want
- I can do many things now as I want
- this is good"
- because of this, this someone feels something good at this time
- like someone can fgeel when they think like this
This approach to emotion semantics allows a great deal of subtle differentiation between closely related emotions (e.g. 'happy', 'joyful', 'pleased', 'content', 'related', 'jubilant', and so on). To see this, here is a parallel explication for the word 'contented'. Notice that it follws the same overall structure or "semantic template":
someone X is contented (at this time):
- someone X thinks like this at this time:
- "something good is happening to me now
- I want this
- I don't want anything else now"
- because of this, this someone feels something good at this time
- like someone can feel when they think like this
"Amae" a peculiarly Japanese emotion
For an example of an explication of a meaning which will be unfamiliar to most readers, we can take the Japanese word amae. According to Takeo Doi (1974, 1981), amae is a "peculiarly Japanese emotion" which "runs through all the various activities of Japanese society" and represents "the true essence of Japanese psychology". So what exactly is amae? Doi explains that it is the noun form of amaeru, an intransitive verb which means 'to depend and presume upon another's benevolence'. It indicates 'helplessness and the desire to be loved'. Amaeru can also be defined as 'wish to be loved' and 'dependency needs'. Various bilingual dictionaries define amae as 'to lean on a person's good will', 'to depend on another's affection', 'to act lovingly towards (as a much fondled child towards its parents)', 'to presume upon', 'to take advantage of'; 'to behave like a spoilt child', 'be coquettish', 'trespass-on', 'take advantage of', 'behave in a caressing manner towards a man'; 'to speak in a coquettish tone', 'encroach on (one's kindness, good nature, etc.)'; 'presume on another's love', 'coax', and so on.
The prototype on which the amae concept is based is not difficult to guess. As Doi says "the psychological prototype of amae lies in the psychology of the infant in its relationship to its mother"; not a newborn infant, but an infant who has already realised that its mother exists independently of itself ...[A]s its mind develops it gradually realises that itself and its mother are independent existences, and comes to feel the mother as something indispensable to itself, it is the craving for close contact thus developed that constitutes, one might say, amae" (Doi 1981: 74). According to Doi and others, in Japan the kind of relationship based on this prototype provides a model of human relationships in general, especially (though not exclusively) when one person is senior to another.
The following explication is adapted from Wierzbicka (1998):
someone X feels amae (towards Y) at this time:
- someone X thinks like this at this time (about someone Y):
- "this someone can do good things for me
- this someone wants to do good things for me
- when I am with this someone, nothing bad can happen to me
- I want to be with this someone"
- because of this, this someone feels something good at this time
- like someone can feel when they think like this