Wierzbicka's semantic primes

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.

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Right--there's no way you can avoid referring to non-specific referents. It's either "this," "that," "it," a common or proper noun, or "something." No, I've never heard of Jean Gebser. I'll check it out, thanks.

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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.

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Yes, that's where the need to "evaluate" comes from. All languages will evaluate, which itself comes down to all languages having the words "good" and "bad."

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Sorry, this comment was a mistake.