Bouvard on Semantic Primes and Universal Evaluators
Reading through *Imprisoned in English* I noted Wierzbicka claimed "something" and "good" and "bad" as universal and I am curious where she defines these. What makes me take note of these concepts is that I recently read *On Kings* by Graeber and he implies that other cultures don't have "things" in the sense of inanimate objects. All is infused with spirits. As for "good" and "bad" wiki tells me these are categorized as evaluators by Wierzbicka but having also read MacIntyre it's clear that good and bad have varying cross cultural meanings. That is before you factor in the change of over time within language, which is MacIntyre's complaint.
Is it that "good" and "bad" have cross-cultural meanings or that what is considered good and bad varies from culture to culture (and historically)?
"Something" is at a minimum a "topic," something you can refer to and talk about. One could say "there is something behind that tree" without implying the notion of an inanimate object.
But she doesn't really define the primes, other than as those words which can only be defined by other words that would themselves need to be defined by the primes. That's how she gets to the primes.
That's why I was trying to clarify what is implied by "something" in her scheme. I'll find the reference in *On Kings* later. As for good and bad, that seems trickier. Having good and bad requires a functional category as pointed out by MacIntyre. Or it can mean (as emotivists point out with modernity) something one likes or doesn't like. If she means in the evaluative (MacIntrean) sense then that has connotations for ethics.
They're evaluators, which really means adjectives. So there can be a good X or bad X. I don't think it matters what the X is, or the basis on which you say it is good or bad, if we're talking about the meaning of "good" and "bad." Even if the words are used to refer to what "I like" and "I don't like" you're still saying "good" and "bad" rather than "I like this" or "I don't like this." Whoever uses "good" and "bad" in this way still feels the need to use those words--that's what makes it possible to identify the moral catastrophe in this understanding of those words. If one didn't use them, it would be necessary to openly admit one is not talking about "morality" or "ethics" at all. So, "good" and "bad" are being used "badly," but we can say that because they have the same meaning as ever.
Bouvard on Semantic Primes and Universal Evaluators — https://center.study/post/reddit-wierzbicka-s-semantic-primes