NSM Semantics versus Conceptual Semantics: Goals and standards (A response to Jackendoff)

Abstract

Jackendoff's rejoinder to my response to his comments on NSM in Intercultural Pragmatics 4(3) is entitled “Conceptual semantics and natural semantic metalanguage theory have different goals.” The second paragraph of his article goes a little further: “The two theories, although they overlap on some issues of word meaning, are ultimately asking different questions and setting different standards for answers.” Here, the hint appears to be that when the questions overlap, Jackendoff's “Conceptual Semantics” (which, he says, is embedded in the broader theory of “Parallel Architecture”) sets higher standards for answers than the NSM theory does.