Verbatim quote · defining passage

“Wierzbicka has discovered a set of what she calls “Natural Semantic Primes”—that is, words, exact translations of which exist in every language. Another way of defining and testing the primes is to say they are words that can’t be paraphrased by other words, without those other words ultimately having to be paraphrased using the primes themselves.”

— Adam Katz, Talk of the Center · 2020 · Anthropomorphics